


How a Grocer Watches Dean Pull His Head Out of His Ass in Seven Days

by 60r3d0m



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Domestic, Episode: s14e13 Lebanon, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, Holding Hands, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Humor, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Mistletoe, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Protective Dean Winchester, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:26:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28160892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/60r3d0m/pseuds/60r3d0m
Summary: It's the holidays, Dean's favourite time of year, and hell, this time Cas ishuman. Cas can't flit off anymore, has to cozy up in the bunker and watch Christmas movies with Dean while Dean treats him to the finer things in life like hot chocolate with marshmallows, except one night, they head out to grab snacks at the gas station and somewhere in the five minutes that they're there, Cas finds himself a hot date and suddenly there's an uncomfortable feeling in Dean's stomach.Dean tries to help Cas, except...Cas blurts out that he doesn't know how to date, doesn't feel comfortable going anywhere without practicing first.So of course, Dean does the noble thing. Dean shuts his eyes tightly. Swallows as if there's something on his mind that's haunting him. And then when he gazes back at Cas, it's with a clenched fist and quivering lips and, "So date me," Dean says.It's only pretend, Dean knows that, but things getrealreally fast.Or a story told from the perspective of a grocer in Lebanon who watches how Dean pulls his head out of his ass in seven days
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 313
Kudos: 343





	1. Lebanon

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a story that I started writing last year and completely forgot about until I rediscovered it a few weeks ago. I intended for it to go out before the 300th episode aired, but clearly, I missed that deadline and, to be completely honest, I wasn't that satisfied with the 300th in the end, anyway. I had hoped that a Lebanon-centered episode would take place from the perspective of the townspeople there (that sounded hilarious to me) but since it didn't, I thought this story would be the perfect thing to do for the holidays! 
> 
> This first chapter is but a _teaser_ of what's to come but it's a little peek into the style this story's written in. The drama between Dean and Cas starts in chapter two in a gentle manner and only gets wilder from there :P It's told from the perspective of a woman named Mrs. Eve Christian who is the owner of the only grocery shop in Lebanon (this is 100% fictional, by the way, so if there are any similarities, I promise they're only coincidences). It'll feature fake dating and Dean and Cas being dumbasses and me trying to be funny (I'm so sorry for what you're about to witness; I'm probably the only one who'll be giggling).

The townspeople of Lebanon, Kansas had had relatively simple lives before those two ruffian brothers with their fancy car had rolled in. It wasn’t that the town wasn’t used to receiving all sorts of strange folk throughout the year—the geographical centre of the nation was apparently a sacred spot for Satanists and Instagrammarians, much to Mrs. Christian’s dismay, and from her daddy (may his soul rest in peace), she had heard all about the postmen who had built a strange door into the side of a hill in the late fifties, purportedly a secret government bunker. But all of these newcomers tended to be driven off, after learning that there wasn’t really much of anything in this part of the state, except for her proud and ostensibly honest business: the sole grocer’s shop in town, and unfortunately for her, a place that was also a regular stop for the Winchesters.

The devil knew where those men came from! They certainly weren’t registered citizens—Mrs. Christian had run across the street to the town hall and checked the records herself. But wherever they were hiding, it had to be a great deal near because at any given time of the month, right before closing hours, they would stumble into her little grocery shop, covered in blood and cuts and bruises. Sometimes they would be accompanied by another man, wearing one of those pricey trench coats that godless city folk loved so much. He was a particularly queer one with an even queerer name that she frequently ignored in favour of calling him ‘the city man,’ and he was often heard asking questions aloud that any man of good common sense would know, but neither brother ever berated him. Rather, to her shock, the freckled fellow would even smile at him fondly, as if asking foolish questions was a thing to be rewarded.

Either way, she minded her own business and never poked her nose where it didn’t belong—her mama had raised her better than that—but good lord, did she wonder.

Little did she know that that very year, right when Lebanon would be shining with Christmas lights and blanketed in crisp white snow, she would finally be getting the answers to all the questions that had ever crossed her mind.


	2. Monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the first real chapter! Still a little on the short side but they only get longer from here :P

The Monday preceding that fateful Christmas was utterly normal. Well, save for the Winchesters.

Right around opening, they stomped in through the front door. Mrs. Christian remarked that for the first time, the city man wasn’t wearing his trench coat. Today, he was clad in jeans that she vaguely recalled the elder Winchester brother wearing on more than one occasion (they were ratty, so Mrs. Christian had frowned at them), and a worn T-shirt that read _Stairway to Heaven_ in heavy gothic lettering that only the devil would approve of. Oh, blasphemy, how she despised it! Quickly, she made the sign of the cross over her chest and uttered a prayer under her breath for protection. Her soul was saved.

The younger brother smiled and greeted her with a warm _Ma’am_. He was an alright fellow, she supposed, or would be if he cut that dratted hair of his. The elder brother simply nodded and grunted something unintelligible, pushing the city man along. She eyed them in her anti-theft mirror as they went further down the aisle, but it wasn’t difficult for her to hear their bickering.

“I told you, Dean,” the city man was saying, in that awfully gravelly voice of his. “I’m fine with what we have at the bunker. I don’t need to buy anything.”

“Nonsense, Cas. You’re _family_. And now that you’re human, I don’t want you starving yourself just because you think you don’t deserve stuff—hey, you want your own yoghurt? You can buy any kind, even with blueberries. You don’t gotta share with Sam.”

At the implication that the city man had not considered himself human before, Mrs. Christian made the sign of the cross again and recited yet another prayer. She had been right all along—they were clearly devil worshippers, and as soon as they left, she would be contacting the mayor (she only hoped he wouldn’t take ill, as he often seemed to do when she needed him the most). 

Anxiously, she paced behind her counter as the two men continued their banter. The younger brother, Samuel, was busy inspecting produce, as if Eve Christian’s farm didn’t have the finest apples in the entire county—the brown rot last year had been an outlier, nothing more—but her attention was once again drawn to Dean and Castiel when a loud crash echoed from the aisle.

Good lord! She opened her mouth in shock.

Dean Winchester was lying on top of the city man!

She expected the freckled hoodlum to remove himself immediately, perhaps even apologize to the city man that he had lost his footing, thereby knocking the man down. But neither of them moved. The elder Winchester, in fact, seemed fixated on the city man’s face, swallowing and licking his lips nervously as if he had something to hide (Mrs. Christian would later scurry over there and recount the stock when they weren’t looking). Another moment passed, and the two stayed glued to the spot. Concerned that a limb had been broken, Mrs. Christian edged towards them, to see if maybe she needed to shift a crate here and there to avoid liability.

But just as she reached them, the elder brother cleared his throat, pulled himself off, and gave his hand to the city man.

“Sorry, uh, goddamn crate was in the middle of the aisle. You okay, Cas? You hit your head pretty hard.”

She watched as Dean Winchester dragged the man up and patted the back of the city man’s head. He held the city man’s face with both hands, caressed the man’s temple with his thumb, before he slowly trailed his hands down the man’s body (my, what a thorough exam!). “Tell me where it hurts,” Dean said in a soft voice, and the city man stood still, let himself be examined, before shifting on his feet and grumbling, “My butt is sore.”

At that proclamation, the Winchester blanched, took a step back and stuttered a few incomprehensible phrases—not that his grunts ever made a lick of sense to Mrs. Christian’s delicate ears—before the brute managed, “That was—you fell on—just, uh, ice it when we get home, dumbass.”

After that, the elder Winchester parted ways with the city man, leaving him in favour of avidly perusing the many magazines of scantily-clad women that Mrs. Christian carried for the passing truckers. It was unsavoury business, one that Mrs. Christian heavily regretted taking part in, but it brought in more customers than all of her apples put together and Mrs. Christian had mouths to feed. Her Rottweiler pups were particularly fickle beasts and all of her earnings from her contract with Millionaire Milk Inc., as she had explained to the mayor, had been gambled away by her drunkard husband the year prior. The fact that there had been a tombstone bearing his name in the cemetery for the last fifteen years was not a relevant piece of information.

Mrs. Christian sighed, waiting for the ungodly customers to leave. 

At last, Samuel Winchester purchased a small notebook—egad, no apple!—while the elder brother, to her surprise, slapped down a copy of a construction magazine featuring a sweaty shirtless worker along with a few groceries. As for the city man, Mrs. Christian watched him shift restlessly for many moments. When the elder Winchester looked at him expectantly, opening his mouth to no doubt fuss with the man about why he wasn’t buying anything for himself, Castiel fumbled a copy of _Casa Erotica_ without even glancing at the cover. But to Mrs. Christian’s utter financial ruin, Dean Winchester suddenly realized that he had no more money to spare and Castiel was made to put back his scandalous choice in reading material.

After that, Dean Winchester was more sullen than usual, pulling out a flask of whiskey from his pocket and taking a swig right in front of Mrs. Christian as soon as the city man went to go sit and wait in that devil machine that the brothers drove in. Mrs. Christian opened her mouth to reproach the elder Winchester brother for his public consumption of alcohol in her store, and most importantly, his impertinence at doing so in front of a _lady_ , but just then, Dean Winchester grabbed another bottle of vodka (he must have realized he had more money), so Mrs. Christian pursed her lips but said nothing as he paid for his supplies—what good would it do to trouble the lad in these turbulent times?

When the trio finally left and the Impala’s growling engine was well and far-off in the distance, Mrs. Christian closed the shop early and went to lie down.

The encounter had left her exhausted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the first chapter! Next one posts tomorrow and is just as silly! :D
> 
> As always, feedback/kudos are always appreciated, and if you'd like, you can visit me on Tumblr [here](http://pray4jensen.tumblr.com).


	3. Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's early because i couldn't wait :P
> 
> chapter warning: homophobia and misogyny from Mrs. Christian

He was back again, the very next evening, much to her consternation.

It was rather odd, truth be told. He seemed to like Mrs. Christian no more than she liked him, and did not make it habit to visit the store if it could be helped. As per the usual, the elder Winchester grunted in her direction, before making his way to the personal hygiene aisle. She wanted to observe him—not because she was a busybody but because she was a frail woman who needed to keep an eye on such things (thieves often took advantage of old ladies—or so she had heard). But just then, the bell on the door went off and in skulked Woody Farmer, her cattle-keeping rival. It gave her great satisfaction that he had to make his purchases here, on account of their town being rather on the small side, and each time he trudged up to the counter with one of her green apples, she served him with a delighted smile. If she thought back, she couldn’t quite recall when their bitter agricultural feud had begun (she’d certainly gotten the upper hand after landing her Millionaire Milk contract). In fact, her husband had been on rather good terms with the elderly bachelor, the two having discovered that they had both served in the Vietnam war and were friends of a woman called Dorothy. After that, they had struck up a brotherly camaraderie, often going on late night strolls together even in the height of winter, in lieu of having dinner at their homes. One time, a few short years before her husband’s death, they had even gone sheep-herding together deep in the mountains, apparently inspired to do so after having read a short story that focused on the brotherly bond of two such sheep-herding friends. At any rate, her husband had always been distant, and after striking up his friendship with Woody, that distance had only grown. Perhaps that had made Mrs. Christian a tad resentful.

Woody, for his part, nodded at her, but when he saw Dean Winchester, a strange expression overtook his face. See, Woody was an unsmiling man—or at least, it had been well over a decade since he had exercised his facial muscles—but upon seeing Dean Winchester, much to Mrs. Christian’s astonishment, Woody Farmer’s face visibly softened. He ambled over to the same aisle, thumped the freckled ruffian on the back, and grinned.

“Been a while, boy,” he said and Dean Winchester started. “Not out with that friend of yours? Do the town some good to see young blood runnin’ ’round here.”

Dean Winchester swallowed and began scrutinizing the product in his hands. Finally, he mumbled, “Yeah. I should hurry. He’s, uh, waiting in the car. Chick at the gas station asked him out last night so…just grabbing a couple of things he might need. He’s new to dating.”

At that, Woody frowned. Mrs. Christian also narrowed her eyes, shocked at the impropriety of the propositioning woman. Then she squinted at Dean Winchester. He certainly didn’t have the air of a pressed man. Rather, he had been dejectedly staring at a bottle of mouthwash for the last five minutes. 

“Now why would your friend do that?” Woody asked. “You two have an argument, son? That’s no reason to go fraternizing. Communication and commitment is what makes a relationsh—”

But all of a sudden, Woody stopped.

“Oh,” Woody said, understanding dawning on him. “Didn’t think—what with all the in-your-face stuff on the television these days—” Woody paused, stroking his beard thoughtfully. He hadn’t shaved in fifteen years.

Whatever Woody was thinking, Mrs. Christian could make no sense of it. She was once more distracted by the shop bell, and then speak of the devil for the city man walked in! He was sans trench coat today as well, again wearing garments that she recalled having seen on the elder Winchester brother before. These were far more proper, however—ironed and crisp, suitable for acquiring a wife.

He greeted her with a very serious _Good evening,_ _ma’am_ before making his way over to Dean Winchester and Woody Farmer. As soon as Dean Winchester saw him, he elbowed the city man playfully, winking and pointing.

“He’s the man!” Dean chortled, with a hysterical unbecoming laugh that made both the city man and Woody jump. “Cas is gonna score tonight, ain’t that right, pal?”

Hearing this, Mrs. Christian scowled. In fact, she was scandalized. Intercourse before marriage! And without the intention of birthing children! How insolent.

Perhaps Castiel was a more upstanding man than she thought, for after Dean Winchester made his comment about “scoring,” Castiel looked troubled and began picking at a stray thread on his shirt. After that, there was an unbearably uncomfortable silence that stretched on for what felt like an eternity, until Woody placed a gentle hand on Dean Winchester’s shoulder and said, “Well, boys, best be on my way. Dean, come ’round the farm sometime. Help alleviate an old man’s boredom, won’t you? Gets lonely ’round the holidays and I got plenty of wisdom to impart…might help you, son.”

Woody gave the Winchester’s shoulder another sympathetic squeeze, smiled in an unfamiliarly kind way that seemed to make the elder brother think deeply about something, and then with one last glance between Castiel and Dean Winchester, Woody made his way out of the shop, only stopping to nod at Mrs. Christian with a curt “Eve” as acknowledgement before he disappeared.

He hadn’t even bought a single apple, Mrs. Christian scoffed.

For a while after that, no one else came to the shop, so she was forced to listen to Dean Winchester’s banter with his friend once again as they shopped for products that would help the city man get the woman he was meeting into his bed. The elder Winchester rambled endlessly, more coherent words than Mrs. Christian had ever heard leave his mouth in all the time since the Winchester brothers had first stepped foot in Lebanon, and though she silently followed them through the aisles to keep an eye on her merchandise, she soon grew bored with the babble and returned to man her till.

“C’mon, Cas, you need hair gel. You can’t go looking like that on your date. You’ve got a freaking bird’s nest on your head.”

“Dean, I don’t know if I want to—I don’t feel ready.”

At the city man’s words, once again there was an uncomfortable silence in the store. Mrs. Christian looked up from the cash she was counting in her hands, and instead edged closer to the back of the store where the two men were standing.

“Do you—don’t you wanna go on your date, Cas?” Dean said, and there was a strange cadence to his voice, almost akin to hopefulness.

The city man shifted on his feet, and after much hesitation, said, “I don’t want to…disappoint you, Dean. I know these sort of things are important to humans and…I’m human now.”

Mrs. Christian nearly knocked over a packet of Skittles in her horror, and closed her eyes and prayed to God to get these devilish good-for-nothings out of her town. After making the sign of the cross across her chest for what felt like the hundredth time that week, she stepped up onto a stray crate in the aisle and peered above the shelves from her newfound vantage point to observe Castiel and Dean Winchester more closely.

The city man was fidgeting with a container of hair gel, as if scrutinizing the contents of its label. The elder Winchester however, despite the smidgeon of hope that Mrs. Christian had detected in his voice just a moment ago, now looked stricken. Was that yearning she saw on his face? But whatever it was, it disappeared just as quickly, for as soon as the city man looked up from the container in his hands, Dean gave the man a strained smile.

“Hey, look, Cas, you couldn’t disappoint me even if you wanted to, alright? So don’t worry about that. You don’t have to buy the hair gel for me, okay? You do what makes you happy. Besides, you’re, uh, already devastatingly handsome as it is. Any woman who doesn’t see that doesn’t deserve you anyway.”

Castiel gave Dean Winchester a grateful smile, but soon enough, he was back to fidgeting with the hair gel container. Absentmindedly, he began to pick at the label. Mrs. Christian fumed. Defiling her stock! She was going to make him pay for that (literally)!

“It’s not the hair gel, Dean. It’s just—” Castiel hesitated. “Dean, I don’t want to ‘score.’”

At that statement, a strange expression crossed the elder Winchester’s face. “Cas…” he said, but before he could go any further, the city man interrupted him.

“I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t know what to _do_ during sex, Dean, or dating. I-I think I would make a fool of myself.”

“Oh,” Dean said and he swallowed.

Mrs. Christian, for her part, was again glaring at them. Oh, how her blood boiled to hear of young people fornicating! And for pleasure rather than the sole act of producing heirs for one’s bloodline as was proper! She made a mind to charge the city man double for the hair gel; she had had enough of these lascivious city folk who thought birthing children was beyond them!

In fact, Mrs. Christian herself fondly remembered the day that she had been born. Not many people knew, but she was in fact British by birth. Born premature while her American parents had been holidaying in Richmond, her arrival had been a bit of a surprise, but a fortunate one at that, and in fact, all her life, she had spoken in the charming lilting accent that her English birth had bestowed upon her in the two weeks that she had lived there after she had been brought into the world. A visiting psychiatrist to her shop had once remarked that she was “practically Victorian in her ways of knowing and being” while urging her to book an appointment with him to discuss her heritage, such had been the psychiatrist’s fascination, and how that had tugged at her heartstrings! She longed to visit England again, perhaps to get a glimpse of Queen Victoria herself (she fancied they looked alike), but simply could not pull herself away from her work now that she had her milk contract. It was tiresome enough managing the new site manager that she had hired, and after she had learned through him that he had hired eight new hands to help him on the farm, she had grown doubly tiresome, now having the knowledge that when she was managing her manager, through him, she was in fact managing nine people. She was a burdened woman.

Mrs. Christian returned her attention to the scene before her, but it seemed that in the time that she had been lost in her thoughts, Dean Winchester still had not spoken. Castiel, on the other hand, had practically picked the label clean off the container and now seemed unable to stand still.

“You think I’m a failure,” he said.

At the words of the city man, Dean quickly looked up and frantically shook his head. “Cas,” he said and he pressed a hand to the city man’s shoulder, before cupping his face. “You’re not a failure, okay? So you’re not ready—big deal. If you don’t wanna go on your date, that’s fine. There’ll be other—other women, okay? Hell, how couldn’t there be? One look at you and anybody would fall head over heels in love with you. I’ll—I’ll help you find a new date, as soon as you’re ready.”

At Dean’s words, Castiel’s grip on the container tightened. To Mrs. Christian’s horror, the plastic cap began to crack. A quality counterfeit product destroyed!

“But how will I be ready, Dean? I need practice, but…I can’t practice without going on this date.”

And at that, Dean Winchester shut his eyes tightly. Swallowed again as if there was something on his mind that was haunting him. And then when he gazed back at Castiel, it was with a clenched fist and quivering lips.

When Mrs. Christian heard the next words out of his mouth, she almost fell off her crate.

“So date me,” Dean Winchester said, and homophobic shock rippled throughout Eve Christian’s tiny body.

For a moment, the city man said nothing. For a moment, the city man stared at Dean with wide, blue eyes, and perhaps Castiel felt just as mortified as Mrs. Christian did because in that split second where Castiel was silent, Dean Winchester began to panic.

“I mean, Cas, not for real, obviously,” the elder Winchester brother blurted and Mrs. Christian breathed a sigh of relief. “Uh, I mean, we could fake-date. Y’know, like those movies. For the next couple of days. I’ll…I’ll pretend to be your b-boyfriend and you’ll get the practice you need and then maybe—maybe if you’re feeling better about it, hell, you could even go on a date with the chick at the gas station after all.”

Castiel was again quiet, and maybe it was because Mrs. Christian was so focused on her stock that that was why she noticed how the city man’s hand was shaking around the hair gel container. Oh lord, if he dropped it! The cap was splintered already!

But finally, “Oh,” Castiel said, and his shoulders dropped. “I suppose…that would be okay, Dean. With me. Um, pretending that is. Pretending that I love you. And want to be with you. But pretending, of course. Because you don’t really want me…I understand that. We would be pretending…of course.”

The city man spoke his words as if he were being held at gunpoint.

But the elder Winchester seemed so rejoiceful at the city man’s acceptance that he seemed to pay no mind to the leaden quality of his words.

“Great,” Dean said and he slapped a hand down onto the city man’s shoulder. “We’ll start tomorrow then. ’Sides we got that movie night planned for today, anyway.”

The pair began to move from the aisle to the front door. Mrs. Christian hastily jumped off the crate and scurried to the till. But the devil worshippers paid her no visit. Having loitered for an hour in her shop, they left without purchasing a single thing and Mrs. Christian, to her dismay, forgot to charge the city man for the broken container of hair gel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man haha when i posted this story last night, i wondered later what the heck i was doing writing something this silly but the sheer joy it gives me is inexplicable and overwhelming
> 
> anyway next chapter out tmr, same time :) dean and cas' first date...


	4. Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another day, another chapter! here it is early again :P
> 
> chapter warning: homophobia, misogyny, and implied racism from Mrs. Christian

There was something about Wednesdays that always put Mrs. Christian in a good mood.

Perhaps it was the fact that she always closed her shop for two hours at lunch on this day of the week, treating herself to a meal in one of the fanciest diners that Lebanon had, coincidentally located right next door to _Good Christian Grocery_. Or perhaps it was the fact that when her husband had been alive, Wednesdays had always been the days that Woody Farmer would go visit his ailing mother (a Kenyan woman—her daddy had never failed to gripe about the scandal as Woody’s father had been his best mate, or at least until Woody’s father had gone on missionary work to Africa and instead of Jesus, had brought back his foreign wife). At any rate, Wednesday had been the day when Mrs. Christian had always had her husband to herself. For three decades, she had not had a single bad Wednesday in her life, so she knew it was going to be a good day.

She found out that she was wrong five minutes later.

Mrs. Christian had barely cozied up in her seat at the diner when the door opened, bringing with it winter’s chill and…the Winchesters.

Or at least one Winchester. _Dean_. And attached to his hip, Castiel Whatever-His-Surname-Was.

For a moment, her body vibrated with homophobic shock again, for upon entering, Dean Winchester immediately wrapped his arm around the city man’s waist, but then Mrs. Christian remembered that today was to be the first day of pretending for them, and as such, was no doubt practice for the city man to acquire a ~~wife~~ whore.

The two loitered by the door, and there was clearly something strange happening between the two of them for despite the elder Winchester’s arm around the city man’s waist, he was shuffling quite frequently, while the city man seemed not to know what to do with his own arms at all. One man would glance at the other man when he thought the other wasn’t looking, and there never quite seemed to be solid eye contact between them, save for a split second that could be a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, though Dean Winchester’s face went tomato-red instantly when it happened.

But at long last, after several minutes of Mrs. Christian observing the irritable scene before her, the town’s resident lesbian and owner of _The Rainbow Diner_ , Cookie Baker, greeted the two, and soon enough to Mrs. Christian’s utter consternation, Dean Winchester and Castiel were both seated in the booth opposite hers.

She was not one to take the Lord’s name in vain, but _god_ , she was never coming back here again! Truth be told, she could not understand why she tolerated this diner—perhaps it was because her late husband had been an avid customer of Cookie’s—but now many years later of calling this place her favourite restaurant in town, she was beginning to question her senses. Had she not known that Cookie Baker had run off to New York City with an older married woman when they had attended eleventh grade together, she would have frankly suspected her husband of having an affair with Cookie. But thank the Lord, her husband had been an extremely faithful man despite his many other flaws. In fact, dare she say it, he had been the most faithful man in all of Lebanon history. Oh, how her heart had ached for that unfortunate husband who had been left behind when Cookie had snatched that man’s wife for herself. Yet strangely, that man had never seemed bothered by his wife running away with Cookie Baker. In fact, that man had promptly returned to a bachelor lifestyle, moving into an apartment with his good friend, Nott Strait, and when his wife had finally returned to Lebanon with Cookie, he had not bothered the lesbian couple much—he had even invited his ex-wife and Cookie over for dinner many times after the fact.

Cookie, for her part, seemed to be taking quite an interest in Dean Winchester and Castiel today. Over her wire-rim glasses that made her look like a librarian, she was peering intently at them, to the point that even Dean Winchester, despite his gruff and brutish ways, was smiling back at her nervously.

“It’s nice to see you here, Dean,” Cookie said as she slid menus over to them. “Woody seemed quite disheartened yesterday. Some news you gave him…but it seems that you’ve patched things up with Castiel lickety-split.”

At this, Dean Winchester swallowed and wriggled in his seat as Cookie rapped Dean’s knee with her cane with a knowing wink. Castiel, however, furrowed his brows in confusion, something Mrs. Christian had noticed that he often seemed to do (did anything ever make sense to that man?!).

“I’m coaching him,” the Winchester finally croaked and he chuckled unconvincingly. “Just, uh, helping my buddy out with dating and…stuff.”

At this, Cookie grinned. “Of course,” she said and winked once more as she tottered away back to her kitchen. “A hands-on approach can be quite educational, wouldn’t you say?”

Something about Cookie’s words had dread building up as tremors in Mrs. Christian’s body. She busied herself with drinking her coffee, trying to steady her shaking hand while afraid to look ahead for fear of seeing Dean Winchester and Castiel do something uncouth. It was the one thing about Cookie that Mrs. Christian had always appreciated—despite openly living with her lesbian lover in Lebanon, Cookie had never been one for public displays of affection. But at the same time, though not wanting to look, Mrs. Christian found that she could not tear her eyes away from the freckled ruffian and his city man friend either. If they did do something uncouth, she wanted to know when it was happening; perhaps she could pray for their souls and save them from damnation.

The two started off cautiously enough. Over the top of her mug, she could see that they were having the same issues as before. Both were seated across from each other, and their commitment to averting eye contact was now a doubly taxing chore. The city man once again seemed puzzled about what his arms were for, and finally settled for tearing the paper napkins at their table into tiny pieces instead. Dean Winchester, however, alternated between sitting like a log and being unable to sit at all, until finally, the city man cleared his throat and struck up some conversation.

“Dean, I don’t think this is working.”

At the city man’s proclamation, Dean Winchester stiffened. His face seemed to fall, before he picked himself back up again.

“C’mon, Cas, we only left the bunker like twenty minutes ago.” 

The city man paused his napkin destruction.

“I know, Dean, but I don’t understand how I’m supposed to learn anything this way. I know this is supposed to be a date—um, fake date—but what am I supposed to be doing?”

The city man’s question seemed to perplex the elder Winchester brother. Mrs. Christian half-expected him to grunt something unintelligible next, but it seemed that the normally brutish man was doing some heavy thinking today. Finally, when at last he spoke, his words were crystal-clear.

“Well, first of all, Cas, we gotta keep up the pretence, okay? No more breaking the fourth wall here by talking about us fake dating. We gotta go in head first or not at all so…so act like you would if this were real, okay? Do what you think people on dates do, and I’ll guide you, alright? And then it’ll be, uh, a natural learning experience and—and you’ve always been a natural, Cas. I mean, look at how quickly you figured out the whole human thing. You used to not sleep at all and now I can barely drag your grumpy ass outta bed. You used to kill angels left and right with your blade, but now, you’re hunting like a pro with a shotgun instead. _Hell_ , you’re gonna be a ladies man in no time.”

At the elder Winchester’s words, Mrs. Christian couldn’t help but let out a squeak of terror. She covered her mouth quickly with her hands, but it seemed that the two devil worshippers took no notice. Weeping, she made the sign of the cross and prayed to the Lord to strike down upon these two Satanists. Who was she kidding? There was no saving their souls; they deserved every bit of damnation they got.

At the words of the elder Winchester, the city man squirmed.

“Dean, the many angels in Heaven that I slaughtered is not exactly a fond memory of mine and I’m not sure that it makes me ‘dating material’ as you would say.”

“Uh, right, Cas. Sorry.”

The city man and the freckled ruffian exchanged a long look then, as if having forgotten their earlier aversion to eye contact. They gazed at each other for so long that Mrs. Christian had enough time to not only recite one but _two_ prayers. She only hoped that they would be enough, dear lord!

But finally, the pair seemed to remember how afraid of eyeballs they were, and the heavy air between them dissolved once more into awkwardness.

What happened next, Mrs. Christian did not see, for it was then that Cookie Baker arrived with Mrs. Christian’s Wednesday lunch special. Oh, it was lovely fare, Mrs. Christian had to admit, and her tongue watered at the plate that Cookie set before her. Plump sausages, sugared peaches, and a side of eggplant lathered on one end with a special white cream. It was an odd arrangement for lunch, to be sure, but good god, did Mrs. Christian enjoy it!

After that, Mrs. Christian was lost to the pleasures of her food, and for a few blissful moments, she forgot all about the two Satanists sitting opposite her booth. Vaguely, she heard Cookie take their order, and heard the Winchester repeat the word “pie” several times, but aside from this, Mrs. Christian heard no more. Instead, she lost herself in daydreams, thinking fondly about the times she had enjoyed a meal here with her husband. Tonight (or rather, tomorrow, she supposed, since she always went after midnight), she would visit her husband’s grave and speak to his headstone about her week. Truth be told, it had grown infinitely easier to talk to him now that he was dead. Their marriage had not been without its own difficulties, but oh, she had loved him dearly!

Unfortunately for Mrs. Christian, her daydreams were soon broken.

Perhaps she had dug into her food too voraciously, for soon she found herself choking on the thick white cream that decorated her eggplant. She coughed, it was tickling the back of her throat, and finally after a good fit and after many moments of wondering if she should try to spit or swallow, she managed to make it go down the right passageway in her throat. However, it was not without consequences, for now she was once again acutely aware of Dean and Castiel now that she had been rudely pulled out of her culinary experience. 

It seemed that she had not missed much, for after Cookie had taken their order, they had resumed their uncomfortable silence, but then, once again, the city man braved new conversation.

“Dean, I appreciate you ordering the pie to share, but I know how fond you are of pie—we don’t have to share it if you don’t want to.”

“Cas, that’s for dessert, alright? We still gotta eat the main course first, and…and this is a date, alright? On dates, you share, because that’s what a gentleman does, and hell, I’ll be damned if you walk outta here on your first date without having the full experience of—of—uh, well, a proper friggin’ date!”

The city man seemed unconvinced but quietly, “Alright,” he said, before he began laying waste to the napkins again. Dean Winchester, however, looked more flustered and distraught and lost for words than Mrs. Christian had ever seen him, probably on account of the fact that his first pretend date with Castiel was turning out to be a fiasco. Oh, perhaps the good Lord had heard her prayers after all!

For a few peaceful moments, it seemed that their date had steered itself into unsalvageable territory, but then, in a soft voice, Castiel said, “We keep breaking the fourth wall, Dean.”

At this, the elder Winchester looked saddened again, but then, “What’s it gonna take for you to believe this, Cas?” he asked and, at that question, the city man stopped shredding paper napkins and instead began fidgeting with his hands in his lap.

“I just—I just can’t play along, Dean, when I don’t have…any backstory. How did we meet? How did you convince me to go on a date? I don’t think I can pretend if I don’t understand how we got here in the first place. I suppose…this is what’s making it so hard today.”

Silence once again reigned down on them. Silence so long and terrible that Mrs. Christian assumed it was the end of them, and attempted to instead turn her attention back to her peaches. But try as she might, she couldn’t. Such a profound dolour seemed to emanate from Dean Winchester’s body, until at last he straightened his shoulders and reached across the table and offered his hand to Castiel.

The city man again seemed bewildered (Did he _ever_ understand _anything_?! Mrs. Christian thought with irritation), but hesitantly, Castiel reached across the table and placed his hand in Dean’s. The same hand, Mrs. Christian remembered, had broken the hair gel container in her shop! Oh, were Castiel’s hands only capable of destruction?!

“Alright, I’m only gonna say this once, so listen, okay?” Dean said and he swallowed, seemingly unable to focus on Castiel’s face. Instead, his eyes were on their joined hands, and almost unconsciously, it seemed, Dean Winchester’s thumb was caressing Castiel’s fingers. After another moment of hesitation, Dean finally seemed to muster the courage to begin talking again. “We met like we really did: in hell. We didn’t meet at a gas station or whatever like you did that chick who asked you out, because that’s not our story— _this_ is. And I don’t know when we fell in love, okay? Maybe it was when I thought the leviathans killed you and I couldn’t stop dreaming about it. Or maybe it was when we were in purgatory and you’d watch over me when I slept and you’d run your fingers through my hair and I wouldn’t say anything because maybe you didn’t know that that’s not how two straight dudes are supposed to act. Hell, Cas, maybe it was even that first day when you yanked me out of the pit, and you had me believing in you from the moment I laid eyes on you—I don’t know. I just know I’ve been in love with you for more time than I can count, and I—it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t because we’re finally together now and you’re living with me and Sam so I don’t have to miss you every second of the goddamn day that you’re gone. I don’t have to make you a mixtape to convince you to stay. You’ve always been there, Cas—when my brother was possessed by Lucifer, when the Mark of Cain made me a murderer, when Mom came back from the dead. All of it, Cas. All of it. And I’m fucking grateful. I _am_. And I wouldn’t change any of it. I only wish it could’ve been sooner. I wish this was the hundredth time I was taking you out to lunch. I wish I couldn’t count the number of pies we’ve ever shared on my fingers. I wish it wasn’t just our first date but god, am I fucking glad we started. I'm so goddamn glad, Cas, that I finally mustered the nerve to ask you to be with me and it finally happened.”

Mrs. Christian didn’t know how Castiel was taking Dean Winchester’s speech, but perhaps it was the same way that she was—by having what she felt must surely be a stroke. Oh, what blasphemy she had had to witness! Oh, how deeply entangled with the devil these two men were! Mrs. Christian had half a mind to hold the cross that hung from the silver chain around her neck and point it at Dean Winchester and Castiel, all the while crying out, “Devil begone! Satan begone!” but as she could not do such a thing without making a spectacle of herself, Mrs. Christian instead reached into her purse and pulled out the vial of holy water she kept on her person at all times. Making the sign of the cross against her chest, she squirted a few drops of the water upon her face, so as to ward away the evil that surely cloaked the two men sitting opposite her booth.

It seemed, however, that once again, she had not missed much in the way of their conversation despite having had a mental breakdown just now. Cookie had arrived with their lunch, and she was smiling warmly at the pair holding hands across the table. At her arrival, the two pulled their hands away, though did so in such a lingering fashion that Mrs. Christian wondered if they wanted to let go at all. After Cookie once again departed, neither man moved to pick up a fork or take a sip of their milkshakes, and then, after what felt like an eternity, Castiel reached across the table and placed his hand on the side of Dean Winchester’s face and, smiling fondly, said, “Thank you, Dean. For the backstory.”

Dean trembled, and Mrs. Christian saw him shut his eyes at the contact, as if he was a being starved of touch. He swallowed again, something Mrs. Christian observed that he often did when he was overcome with emotion, before softly uttering, “You’re welcome, Cas,” as Castiel slowly withdrew his hand.

After that, it seemed the pair had no trouble pretending that they were courting. Soon enough, their catastrophe of a date seemed to turn itself on its head, and by the time their pie arrived, Dean Winchester was even jokingly referring to Castiel as his “sweetheart.” And then, when the bill came, to Mrs. Christian’s utter horror, Cookie pulled a length of mistletoe from her pocket and held it above their table, winking at Dean Winchester again in that same knowing way that she had done when he first arrived at _The Rainbow Diner_.

The mistletoe had the pair nervous once again, unable to meet eyes, but then it seemed that the same idea occurred to both of them at the same time, and Mrs. Christian couldn’t quite tell who leaned over the table first, but Dean Winchester and Castiel kissed softly and quietly for the first time under mistletoe, just as fresh snow began to fall from the sky above Lebanon, and at the same time that Mrs. Christian began sobbing loudly and terribly, for a strange emotion had overtaken her and she could not understand what it was.

When at last the two left, Cookie Baker came to Eve’s booth and inquired what the fuss was all about. Mrs. Christian wiped at her eyes with the handkerchief that Cookie handed her, and recounted everything she had heard.

“They’re in league with the devil, Cookie,” she wept and Cookie’s eyes widened with terror. “We must do something!”

Oh, if only Mrs. Christian had known what would happen soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter tmr as per usual, featuring mrs. christian's visit to her husband's tombstone. it's weird, but she might just find the winchesters there :P


	5. Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, to preface this insane chapter, i will say that i truly did know not one but _two_ girls who would get one drink in them and promptly lose their minds. it would suck because they would cry all night and you'd have to take care of them, so congrats to them, because i am entirely basing my characterization of drunk castiel on them :P i'm so sorry for what you're about to read
> 
> i'm also sorry i'm a few hours late with this chapter! but it is sooo huge and i felt apprehensive about posting it because it gets soo cracky but like, i hope you guys like it, anyway? haha i'm scared 
> 
> chapter warnings: homophobia from Mrs. Christian; dubious consent between Dean and Cas just because they're both drunk but nothing really dubious happens at all—the warning's just here to be on the safe side because everybody's comfort levels are different

When Mr. Christian had at last succumbed to the cancer that had been growing within his body, the whole town had found out within moments of his death, for that was how loudly Eve Christian had wailed.

The doctors had long ago told them that there was little hope left, but that had not stopped Mrs. Christian from praying day and night, begging God or any angel out there for help. But no one had come, and to many a person, her continued faith in God after Mr. Christian had passed had been a source of confusion, but to Mrs. Christian, who had had no family left, whether God was listening or not was irrelevant—to leave God behind would have been akin to being utterly alone in the world and that was a thought far more unbearable than a deity who simply could not listen.

As it was, Mrs. Christian’s habit of crying loudly enough for all the neighbours to hear had not been a new one, but it was a habit that had only grown worse after Mr. Christian had died. So, when it came to visiting the grave of her late husband, it was perhaps to nobody’s surprise that Mrs. Christian often did it in the dead of night, when her moaning, while heard, could not be seen. These days, she did not cry as much, but simply visited his grave each Thursday morning in the first hour of the day out of habit alone. She liked to think that he now expected her to be there, as if they had an appointment, and by chance if that were the case, she did not want to disappoint him.

This was why Mrs. Christian was at the cemetery tonight at an ungodly hour.

As was usual, she knelt at his tombstone, lovingly arranging the fresh flowers she brought each visit while murmuring about her week and the shenanigans at the farm and shop, pausing sometimes as if she half-expected her husband to answer. She cleaned the letters that made up his epitaph, ran her fingers over the engraving of his name—oh, how she had always loved his name, so aristocratic it had sounded! The day she had become Mrs. Gaylord Richard Christian had been one of the proudest moments of her life. Her subsequent outrage at finding out that most people referred to her husband by his middle name rather than his first had jolted her fully; the town may have called her husband _Dick_ , but she would not be caught dead uttering such a common name.

Mrs. Christian was just in the middle of recounting her latest ordeal at Cookie’s diner when the noise of approaching feet caught her ear. It was not the first time it would happen, nor the last, for this corner of the graveyard was well-known as a spot where homosexual couples would often come to be together, another item in Mrs. Christian’s long list of grievances that she would often take up with the mayor (or at least whenever the mayor was not ill, which only seemed to be at public functions and never when Mrs. Christian went to his office to seek an audience). It was a fact that back in the older days of Lebanon’s history, homosexuality had not been as permissible as it was today, and as such, couples had often had to hide their encounters from other townspeople. They had come here, where for many years, their people had been buried in unmarked graves, until the graveyard behind the church had been extended and joined with the unmarked graves.

Oh, how Mrs. Christian had wept when she had learnt that her husband had foolishly reserved a burial plot for himself in the section meant for homosexuals! That had been one of their most terrible quarrels in the months leading up to his death. When Mrs. Christian had finally resigned herself to accepting his error, she had made enquiries to see how she herself could be interred with her husband upon her death, only to discover with irritation that Woody Farmer had made the same foolish mistake and had made arrangements to be buried in the same plot as Mr. Christian, leaving her no choice but to pick the spot adjacent to her husband as she had been told in no uncertain terms that there was “simply no more space in [her] husband’s plot” for her. When she had demanded why Woody would do such a thing, Mr. Christian had explained to her that it had been a bargain, a two-for-one deal that neither Woody nor Dick had been able to resist, and as money had been tight when her husband had passed, she had reluctantly let it go.

Mrs. Christian sighed, the memory of their fight dredging back awful feelings within her heart. She should go home, she thought, but in all honesty, she did not want to leave her husband just yet. So, with another dramatic sigh, she resigned herself to the knowledge that soon enough the homosexual couple whose footsteps she could hear would soon be within sight, and she would no doubt have to endure the sounds of their canoodling as she tried further to communicate with her husband’s spirit.

Of course, it was just her luck that the couple in question comprised of Dean Winchester and Castiel!

Oh, the horror she felt rushing through her veins at the sight of them! Oh, the tears that welled up in her eyes as she recalled her frightening conversation with Cookie just mere hours ago when she had relayed what devilish things she had heard them say! Mrs. Christian began gathering her cleaning supplies hurriedly—she could not stay so complacently in the presence of evil—but to her horror, before she could scurry away, the two evildoers were before her, two tombstones down. Oh, she was so afraid of what they might do to her should they spot her! Who was to say what they were capable of after the sun went down, when the moon was full and shining bright in the sky? So Mrs. Christian sobbed, as quietly as she could, and crouched behind her husband’s gravestone, embracing it with all her might. Good god, if only her husband were alive to protect her!

Soon enough, she became aware of another horrible fact. From her vantage point, she could see the way the two Satanists were wobbly on their feet, giggling well and good in a way that made it clear that they had consumed the devil’s drink! They were intoxicated, Mrs. Christian realized. Uninhibited! Fully unhinged to do whatever devil work pleased them!

Quite understandably, Mrs. Christian fainted right there and then.

It was unclear to her how much time had passed when she finally came back to her senses. She groaned, massaged her head where it had no doubt collided with her husband’s tombstone, and because it was as silent as the grave, for a moment, she believed the two terrors had gone.

But such was her luck that of course they had not.

Leaning against a massive oak tree, bathed in moonlight, was Castiel with Dean Winchester in his arms.

She would have thought them sleeping at first glance. She peered over Mr. Christian’s tombstone and observed the way that Dean Winchester was sitting with his back against the city man’s chest, eyes closed, as if at peace. But just when she was about to scramble to her feet, she saw movement from the corner of her eye, Castiel’s fingers running through Dean’s hair, every now and then, and each time it would happen, Dean Winchester would tremble a little and lean into it, as if he could not get enough.

So, fearing for her life, she stayed put.

How regrettable she had not brought her cellular device to call for help tonight.

After many moments of quietude where Mrs. Christian considered making a run for it, it was Castiel at last who broke the silence. “Do dates usually last this long?” he asked and at that, Dean Winchester shifted his body, eyes opening as his reverie was broken.

“Hell, if they’re as good as this, why not?”

“Hmm,” Castiel said, and he continued sweeping back Dean Winchester’s hair. 

Dean Winchester, for his part, seemed somewhat melancholic all of a sudden. When Castiel tangled his fingers in Dean’s hair, this time Dean reached up and caught Castiel’s hand, pressing a kiss to it swiftly. And then he turned around, knelt in front of the city man, and swallowing hard as he often did, “Cas, there’s something I gotta tell you,” he said, just as the city man leaned forward and captured Dean Winchester’s mouth with his own.

Whatever the freckled hoodlum had wanted to say, the words were stolen from his throat as quickly as Castiel stole the breath from his lungs. Dean Winchester kissed the city man desperately, and Mrs. Christian’s eyes were the size of saucers, for she knew that unlike the time that her husband had once pecked Woody on his lips as a gesture of gratitude for the turkey that he had gifted them during a particularly harsh winter, what Dean Winchester and Castiel were doing tonight was clearly far from a friendly gesture! She covered her eyes with her hands, so that she might not have to witness the scene, but alas, the gaps between her fingers were too wide, yet another horrific side effect of her rheumatoid arthritis, so to Mrs. Christian’s dismay, she saw the entire lusty affair play out in all its glory in front of her tear-filled eyes! Oh, how badly she did not want to see this! If only Mrs. Gaylord Dick Christian had remembered that she could simply close her eyes.

When Castiel and Dean Winchester at last broke for air, Dean let out a little breathless laugh, leaned against Castiel with their foreheads touching, before Castiel cupped Dean’s face and kissed him softly again.

“I hear from a good friend of mine that first dates sometime end with sex,” Castiel said and the very breath in Dean’s body seemed to stutter just as Mrs. Christian had the wind knocked out of her own. Castiel trailed his mouth over Dean’s ear, left a flurry of barely-there kisses down his neck and Dean groaned, panting, gasping for air just as Castiel pushed him down to the ground.

“Yeah, that something…you’d be interested in learning, Cas, huh?” Dean said even as Castiel clambered on top of him, and straddled Dean’s waist. Dean Winchester’s face had such an expression of yearning just then that Mrs. Christian felt rattled to her core, and as she watched Dean slide his hands up under Castiel’s shirt, for the first time in a long time, Mrs. Christian felt something stir in her. She could not pinpoint what it was, for just then, homophobic shock rippled through her yet again.

“I’d be _very_ interested in learning about that,” Castiel said, and the two kissed once more. “I’ve never been taken to bed, Dean. You could be my first.”

In response, the freckled ruffian let out a wanton sound, followed by a long list of expletives that Mrs. Christian would not dare to repeat, and then with her eardrums truly shattered by the obscene language that dripped from the Winchester’s mouth, she became numb to the world, incapable of taking in any more of the scene before her until…

Until she saw _it_.

Oh, how loudly she gasped! Oh, how in all her years of marriage, she had never seen such a horrendous thing! God, right there, for all the universe to see, Dean Winchester was tenting in his pants, all of his arousal on display to the universe like a dancing bear at the circus!

For the second time that night, Mrs. Christian lost consciousness.

When she came to, head bleeding from her second collision with her husband’s tombstone, not much had changed in the scene before her, and she was just about to faint again when Dean Winchester suddenly pushed at Castiel’s chest, sat them up and helped the city man lean against the oak tree again, and, “Cas,” he said and he was smiling, smiling in a painful, painful way as if something was killing him from the inside. “C’mon, Cas, we can’t do this. I think you’re drunk, okay? You don’t want this.”

Who would have thought that Dean Winchester would be such a gentleman?! He almost had Mrs. Christian fooled, but then she recalled how that little Satan devotee had chatted so casually about being a serial killer in Cookie’s diner just this morning, and Mrs. Christian once again felt her body go cold.

The city man, however, seemed to disagree profusely with Dean Winchester’s noble statement. “I’m not drunk, Dean,” he slurred and he tugged at his hoodlum friend’s jacket, leaning forward for another sloppy kiss, except this time, Dean shut his eyes and gently held the city man at bay.

“Cas, all those shots from earlier are catching up to you. Let’s get you home, sweetheart, okay?”

“I used to drink a liquor store,” Castiel grumbled but he seemed to let up. Mrs. Christian clutched at her heart in horror—no wonder the city man was always so confused! He was a raging alcoholic! As Mrs. Christian grappled with this revelation, Dean Winchester pulled the city man up, and the two at last began to stumble out of the graveyard. Mrs. Christian breathed a sigh of relief, ready to bolt, but alas, it was not to be, for just then, shining a flashlight and carrying a shotgun in one hand, Samuel Winchester arrived.

Samuel Winchester, by all accounts, was not a bad man, thought Mrs. Christian, and in fact reminded her of her late husband on account of his giant body, but now seeing him holding a shotgun, she could not idly wonder if there was not some family drama afoot. Perhaps he had come, outraged at his brother’s homosexual lifestyle, and was here to set him straight. But then Mrs. Christian remembered that Dean Winchester had spoken of his brother being possessed by the devil and Mrs. Christian slumped against her husband’s tombstone for the third time that night.

This time, however, she must have come to relatively quickly, for it seemed that very little time had passed since she had lost consciousness. Samuel was still standing in the same spot, flashlight still aimed at his brother and friend, though now he wore an expression of exasperation on his face.

“Dean, I’ve been calling you all night! You couldn’t have checked your messages once? I had to track the GPS on your phone! We’re in the middle of a freaking case!”

Dean Winchester twiddled his thumbs, or well, Mrs. Christian was quite sure he would have, judging by the nervous expression on his face, if he had not been holding the city man upright in his arms.

“You know Cas has got that date tomorrow, Sam. I was just helping him get ready.”

At the elder Winchester brother’s words, the city man smacked him. “Stop breaking the fourth wall, Dean,” he mumbled and Samuel Winchester’s eyebrows shot up with disbelief.

“Is he drunk, Dean?” he asked, just as Dean chuckled nervously and eased the city man off his shoulder.

“Right, Cas, uh, _honey_ ,” Dean Winchester said and he once again returned Castiel to his position at the base of the oak tree. Castiel was now well and fully intoxicated, Mrs. Christian observed, and it took some skilled maneuvering on Dean Winchester’s part to extract the city man who was clinging to him like a koala bear to a tree. “You stay right here, alright, sweetheart? Let me talk to Sam and then we’ll get you home, okay?” 

“Okay,” Castiel said breathlessly and to Mrs. Christian’s utter fascination, the city man fell promptly asleep.

Samuel Winchester, however, was not impressed.

“Hey, look, he was fine just twenty minutes ago,” Dean said when he turned back to his brother. “I didn’t know he was gonna turn full drunk sorority girl on me.”

Samuel glared. “Dean, just because you’re a functioning alcoholic—”

After that, the two Winchesters got into a tiresome fight that Mrs. Christian quickly lost interest in, or well, almost lost interest in except for several times, the brothers discussed how the city man had only recently become human, which would quickly bring fear rushing right back into Mrs. Christian’s body. The younger Winchester brother accused Dean Winchester of corrupting Castiel (Mrs. Christian could not more fervently agree) and this seemed to hit deep within Dean Winchester’s heart, for after that, he looked quite stricken, as if he agreed with every word his brother had said. In fact, they squabbled for so long that she began to wonder if she could possibly get away without being noticed, but just as she began to will her creaky knees into a standing position, Samuel Winchester’s next words chilled her to her bones.

“Dean, anyway, I think we’re gonna have to summon a demon if we wanna finish this job.”

At this, Mrs. Christian could no longer contain herself. Oh, goodness gracious, how could she, given these two devilish brothers! She let out a tortured wail, a loud brutish groan that sounded like a wounded soldier, and it was fortunate for her that the sound coming out of her mouth sounded so uncannily masculine, for Dean Winchester immediately turned and ran to Castiel, thinking it had come from him.

“Cas!” he said and he dropped to his knees before the city man, cradled his face with such heartbreaking concern that Mrs. Christian found that her second wail was unable to escape her throat. The freckled ruffian’s concern was strangely touching, she found, and for a moment, she watched mesmerized as he shook the city man, until the city man at last awoke from his nap with a great big belch.

“You are…very beautiful, Dean, did you know that?” Castiel mumbled and from across the graveyard, Samuel Winchester’s face twisted into an expression of confusion.

At Castiel’s words, Mrs. Christian saw a visible red flush creep up Dean Winchester’s neck, and in fact, the man reached back to rub at that very spot.

“You’re drunk,” Dean said again and Castiel smiled big and pecked Dean square on the lips for god knows how many times that night. It seemed that Castiel’s smile was a bit infectious, however, for Dean Winchester began smiling back despite himself, and the two devil worshippers gazed at each other most lovingly for several moments. Then, once again cupping Castiel’s face, “You okay?” Dean whispered, but before the city man could answer, Samuel stepped forward with a frown.

“Dean, are you dating Cas?” he asked incredulously, and Dean instantly froze.

It seemed that the city man in particular was not interested in letting his demon-worshipping lover respond, because he promptly said, “Yes, we are, Sam,” and entwined his fingers with Dean’s. Dean, however, seemed awfully caught between a rock and a hard place and when Castiel began staring at him with wide blue eyes that appeared more and more hurt by the second, slowly, Dean began to nod.

“Uh, yeah, Sam, we…are,” Dean said, and wrapped an arm around the city man’s waist who leaned his head instantly onto the freckled ruffian’s shoulder. “He’s my…honeybunch...that's right...”

Never in her life had Mrs. Christian seen Samuel Winchester so utterly perplexed.

“Dean, I thought Cas had a date with that woman from the gas stat—”

But Dean Winchester pressed a finger to his lips, shushing his brother, no doubt because the drunk city man was already opening his mouth to complain about breaking the fourth wall of their artificial relationship. Oh, how many drinks did he have in him?! How was he still standing upright?! It seemed that with time, despite both the evildoers arriving at the cemetery together in a state of intoxication, Dean Winchester had only grown more sober while Castiel had only become more and more befuddled. She shuddered to imagine the headache that the city man would no doubt have the following morning. Would he even remember this night? Would he remember the tender moments that he had shared with Dean Winchester at this cemetery or even at Cookie’s diner, or would he forget them all and go on his date with the woman from the gas station, while Dean Winchester would lie in bed awake at night, missing the city man and reliving their romance night after night in his mind? Mrs. Christian did not know why, but the word _foreshadowing_ suddenly popped up inside her head. 

But as for why the city man had opened his mouth just now, it turned out that the words that Castiel had to say did not consist of a message about breaking the fourth wall at all. Rather, they consisted of something else entirely.

Because when the city man _did_ open his mouth, it was to say, “Sam, Dean’s going to take my virginity tonight,” and the horrific argument that this statement launched between the brothers was loud enough to raise the dead.

Mrs. Christian began gathering her items at once, now convinced that this commotion was exactly what she needed to get away. Good lord, she had had enough of these rampant homosexuals! She had had her lifetime’s share of these brothers bickering! She quickly stuffed her belongings into her purse, groaning when she discovered that her cellular phone had been with her this entire time after all. As she packed, she caught snatches of the brothers’ argument: Samuel, agitated, demanding _Dean, he’s drunk, how could you!_ and Dean Winchester, shouting, _I wasn’t gonna fuck Cas, Sam!_ and then the city man, perhaps the most hysterical out of them all, who upon hearing his fake lover’s words, grabbed Dean Winchester by his collar and pinned him up against the oak tree with surprising strength while whining _Why not?_

They continued to argue ( _How many drinks did you let him have, Dean?!_ and _It was three shots_ , _Sam—how was I supposed to know he’s a friggin’ lightweight?!)_ , and many times, the city man would interject the conversation with nonsensical heated objections of his own that would have Dean Winchester crooning to him, caressing the city man’s face while gently coaxing _C’mon, Cas, let’s take you home, okay?_ , but it no longer mattered what nonsense and chaos these three were causing at Lebanon’s graveyard in the middle of the night, for Mrs. Christian was ready at last to disappear, having now gathered all her belongings, so breathing a sigh of relief and adjusting her purse on her shoulder, she began to crawl away from the insane trio after a quick goodbye kiss to her husband’s tombstone. 

And of course, it was then that everything suddenly became quiet.

Mrs. Christian felt dread run through her.

And perhaps the same thought occurred to Sam and Dean Winchester at the exact same time.

“Wait, remember that scream from earlier, Dean?” Samuel Winchester said and both brothers stared at each other with bewilderment. “That wasn’t Cas, right? But it came from right over there.”

And Mrs. Christian gulped, clutched the cross around her neck and began to pray earnestly.

Oh, what would happen to her if these devil-worshipping brothers found her? What would they do to her once they discovered that she had overheard everything that had gone down at the cemetery tonight?

Surely it would not be anything good, she thought, and perhaps that was why she fainted for the fourth time that cold, winter night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and another chapter down and three more to go! hope your holidays are going well! i will have another cracky chapter out tmr featuring dean visiting woody at his farm, cas dealing with the aftermath of his binge-drinking, and more cracky stuff like...well, you'll see........
> 
> as always, feedback and kudos are always super appreciated! thank you so much to everybody who's been commenting on this fic <3 your support means a lot! <3


	6. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: references to queerphobia, misogny, and racism

By the time Mrs. Christian opened up her shop on Thursday morning, she had dark circles under her eyes.

Today’s ordeal at the cemetery had certainly taken its toll on her already weary body, but every few minutes, she would send a prayer of thanks towards heaven for the lucky incident that had saved her life. Just when she had thought herself on the cusp of discovery by the Winchesters, their footsteps growing ever so closer to the large headstone that she had been hiding behind, it was then that Castiel had suddenly called out, a strained _Dean_ before he had hurled the contents of his stomach right onto her husband’s grave! Oh, how she had cried then, sobbing noisily, unable to contain her grief, but the Winchesters had been busy making their own commotion so her misery had largely gone unnoticed. As soon as Castiel had emptied his stomach, Dean Winchester had run to him, cradled the man in his arms as if he was afraid that Castiel was on his death bed, and had promptly told his brother to come with him and forget the strange noise—i.e. Mrs. Christian’s haunting wail—because _Cas needs to get home, Sam! He’s sick!_

Within five minutes, the graveyard had been empty.

The next three hours, until six in the morning, Mrs. Christian had slaved away, cleaning Mr. Christian’s tombstone with backbreaking effort until it had shone and sparkled once more. After that, she had been too exhausted to walk the rest of the way back to her farm, and pulling out her cellular device, she had sent Cookie Baker a letter imploring her for her help.

**Eve Christian:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:23 AM_

My dearest friend Cookie, I hope you are having a splendid morning. As it so happens, I am in need of some dire assistance. As you must recall, it is an unfortunate fact that those Winchester brothers and their friend from the city are in fact devil worshippers, as you already know from the conversation that I fortuitously overhead at your fine establishment this Wednesday morning. You must surely recall what happened the last time our beloved town was seized by Satanists in 1966! As it so happens, I was this morning visiting my dear husband’s grave when, lo and behold, Dean Winchester and Castiel arrived, perchance to perform some demonic ritual. Fearing for my life, I hid, and soon enough, the pair were followed by the younger Winchester brother, Samuel. For many hours, I kept myself hidden until at long last they left, but not before I overheard Samuel speak of summoning a demonic entity! My dear friend, I do not know when they mean to do such a dastardly thing, but I was given the impression that it will be soon! You and I must raise the alarm and warn the town. Perhaps we can also inform Woody for he was a much trusted and good friend of Mr. Christian, though it seems he has unfortunately taken a liking to Dean Winchester; thus, it is imperative that we steer Woody back onto the right path. Please, I urge you to contact me at once regarding this matter. Yours sincerely and with much love, Mrs. Gaylord Christian.

**Cookie Baker:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:34 AM_

_Read_

**Eve Christian:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:35 AM_

My dearest Cookie, I could not help but notice that you have read my letter. Could you please send your response? As you know, it is an urgent matter and we must hurry! I believe Samuel Winchester intends to summon the demon shortly. Will you not help me, dear friend? Yours sincerely and with much love, Mrs. Gaylord Christian.

**Cookie Baker:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:51 AM:_

ok ill help u

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:51 AM:_

if u stop insisting the sidewalk outside ur shop belongs 2 u alone

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:51 AM:_

let me keep my menu placard outside ur shop door. dick used 2 have no concern with me putting it there 15 years ago.

**Eve Christian:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:52 AM_

Dear Cookie, Please address my late husband by his proper name! He was by birth Gaylord, not Dick! Regards, Mrs. Gaylord Christian.

**Cookie Baker:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:52 AM_

_Read_

**Eve Christian:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:56 AM_

My dearest and most beloved Cookie, Perhaps I seemed a tad short-tempered with you and I sincerely apologize. As you surely must have taken note, I had quite the ordeal this morning! I do not know what gave you the impression that I do not wish for your diner’s menu placard to be situated outside my shop door but I assure you, like my late husband Gaylord, I have no issue at all with you placing it there. Yours sincerely and with my humblest apologies, Mrs. Gaylord Christian. 

**Cookie Baker:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:57 AM_

the impression was given when u kept tossing my sign into oncoming traffic if i put it in front of ur shop door.

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:57 AM_

but fine ill help u bc the gay lord was a good friend of mine.

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:58 AM_

come by the diner around 1 o clock 2 discuss

**Eve Christian:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:59 AM_

My dearest Cookie, I am overjoyed to hear of your acceptance! Now, this matter aside, I do have a small favour to ask of you, my friend. I am aware that you are in possession of a red automobile. To my utter despair, I am still at the cemetery and I am afraid that I may not make it back in time for my shop’s opening hours without a lift. Could I perhaps trouble you for a ride? Yours sincerely and with much love, Mrs. Gaylord Christian.

**Cookie Baker:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 6:59 AM_

_Read_

**Eve Christian:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 7:01 AM_

COOKIE PLEASE!!!!!!!!

**Cookie Baker:**

_Thursday, Dec. 22, 7:03 AM_

fine

When Cookie Baker had at last arrived at the cemetery, she had been shocked to find the state that Mrs. Christian had been in. They had driven to the diner, and Cookie had sat Eve down in a booth and patched up the wound on her head, which Mrs. Christian had confessed had been the result of her fainting spells against her husband’s tombstone.

“Oh, Cookie!” Mrs. Christian had cried and she had thrown her arms around the cook as she had wept. “You don’t have any idea how terrible this morning was for me!”

As Mrs. Christian had howled with her face buried in Cookie’s neck, Cookie had patted her on the back in a soothing pattern that had made Eve Christian instantly regret all the terribly rude things she had ever done to the lesbian restaurant owner. She had then cried profusely, had begged forgiveness for not attending Cookie’s wife’s funeral when she had passed three years ago, despite the fact that Cookie had attended Mr. Christian’s funeral more than a decade ago. She had then promised to attend Cookie’s future second wife’s funeral, should it ever occur, for she knew that this year, Cookie had begun seeing a Chinese woman, but Cookie had ruefully informed her that she had broken up with her girlfriend, on account of the oceans separating them being quite enormously wide and difficult to traverse.

At any rate, point being, by the time Mrs. Christian had finally shuffled into her shop at nine o’ clock sharp for a late opening, she had not slept a wink the entire night, and nothing had instantly ruined her day further than to see that the Winchesters were already parked outside her establishment, impatiently waiting for her to start up her business for the day.

Oh, how nervous she was! Though she knew they had no reason to suspect where she had been this morning, she still shuddered to think what they could find out, perhaps by using some terrible form of black magic! But still, she let them into her shop, and anxiously hovered at the till waiting to see what they were looking to purchase, prepared to write it down to discuss with Cookie later, should they perhaps be materials for a demon summoning spell or something similarly wicked.

Today, to her utter dismay, the Winchesters had brought along their son, or at least, that was what they called him. He was a strange young man, who at least passively resembled Castiel, and behaved in similarly confusing ways (good god, was he a drunkard too?!). Upon entering, he held his hand up in greeting, uttering a bright “Hello!” before moving down the aisles. As for the city man, he stepped in next, supported by Dean Winchester who had a hand on his shoulder, and judging by the forlorn expressions that the pair wore, it was clear that Castiel was quite heavily suffering the aftereffects of the large quantity of liquor he had consumed just hours before. Finally, Samuel Winchester came in, appearing just as vexed as he had when he had spotted his brother and friend at the cemetery last night, though he stopped to greet her with his usual _Ma’am_ before he, too, disappeared down the aisles. 

For the next twenty minutes of their visit, Mrs. Christian trembled with fear. Several times, she made the sign of the cross against her chest and sprayed holy water over her body whenever the anxiety became too great.

It soon became apparent, however, that Castiel was in no shape for satanic rituals, let alone shopping. He swayed often, as if still smashed, until Dean Winchester sat him down on a stray crate and in a low voice asked if the man was okay.

“I don’t remember anything, Dean,” the city man said and he groaned, covering his face with his hands. “And everything is so bright.”

“Yeah, that’s called a hangover, buddy. C’mon, we’re just gonna pick up a few things for your headache and then you can get back into bed.” 

But the city man did not budge. Instead, he reached for Dean Winchester’s hand, and at this, the freckled hoodlum’s face softened. He crouched down beside the city man, balanced his free hand on Castiel’s knee while keeping his other hand firmly entwined with the city man’s, and there was a strange expression on Dean Winchester’s face, and Mrs. Christian reasoned, that perhaps it was simply the angle of his head at just that moment but it looked as if Dean Winchester wanted nothing more than to kiss Castiel right there and then.

“Thank you, by the way,” the city man said, “for our fake date yesterday. I may not remember much, but I still remember feeling happy, Dean. I think I’m ready to see that woman tomorrow. I’m glad you had me reschedule. I would have regretted cancelling it altogether.”

And oh, how swiftly Dean Winchester’s face fell! How utterly strained and painful his smile looked! And then, oh lord! Mrs. Christian had an epiphany and for what felt like the hundredth time that week, her body shook as homophobic shock overtook her. How had she not seen it before? How had she not noticed how thin their fake-dating pretence was? This godless man, Dean Winchester, was an _authentic_ homosexual, wasn’t he?!

She lost consciousness at once.

Or _would_ have, she supposed, if she were not so invested in hearing what the freckled ruffian had to say in response to the city man’s clear rejection of his love.

But it turned out that Dean Winchester said nothing. Several times, he swallowed, worked his mouth as if he had more to say, but not a single word came out. He closed his eyes then, took a deep breath, but then the city man pulled his hand away from Dean Winchester and this seemed to break the elder Winchester brother completely. A small sound came from his throat then, a little whimper that was barely audible to Mrs. Christian’s sharp ears, but it seemed that Castiel did not hear it, for just then his son came prancing down the aisle and asked him if he could buy another cereal box despite not having finished the last one, for he desperately wanted to obtain the special decoder ring hidden inside the box that would complete his collection of useless plastic parts that the box promised would reveal a secret message.

After that, Castiel was swept away, and for a long time, Dean Winchester stood by the abandoned crate alone, jaw clenched with his fist curled at his side. He ran his hands over his face several times, paced heavily to and fro, and Mrs. Christian knew well enough that the man was suffering from love sickness, or perhaps a broken heart, and despite all the homophobia internalized in her little body, she could not help but feel a twinge of sadness for this man who seemed so distraught.

At last Castiel came back, and Dean Winchester was standing there waiting with his shopping bag, having bought many medicines for the city man (though Mrs. Christian still worried about their possible demonic applications), and then, after Samuel Winchester and Jack Kline had exited through the door, Dean stopped Castiel, a hand to his shoulder holding him in place right at the threshold between _Good Christian Grocery_ and the rest of Lebanon.

“So what do you remember?” Dean said and Castiel gazed up at Dean with his beautiful blue eyes, and he trembled a little, perhaps because of the cold winter air drifting in through the open door. He shifted a bit, and Dean Winchester swallowed again, and Mrs. Christian held her breath waiting for the city man’s answer.

But finally, Castiel smiled, a small, soft thing, and said, “I think…I only remember the car ride to the diner next door for lunch, Dean,” and then with a small touch to the freckled man’s hip and another soft sad smile, he left, leaving Dean Winchester standing there, the door of Mrs. Christian’s humble shop closing shut in front of his face now that the city man’s back was no longer there to prop it open.

Dean Winchester stood there for a long while, breathing heavily, and then with one glance upwards to the ceiling, he too departed. It was then that Mrs. Christian realized that the two men had been standing under artificial mistletoe, a decoration that Mrs. Christian put up for Christmas each year but heavily regretted once she would remember how many teenagers in town would use it as encouragement to partake in lewd behaviour.

And then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Christian gasped, for it was just then that she realized why Dean Winchester had looked so longingly at the mistletoe as he had left! Oh, how agonizing, Mrs. Christian thought—oh, how heartbroken Dean Winchester must have been to learn that the city man did not remember their first kiss under the mistletoe at Cookie’s diner! It was no wonder he had stopped Castiel there, hoping against hope that the city man had not forgotten their special moment, such pining and desire and need radiating off him that Mrs. Christian herself was sweating! 

But then Mrs. Christian remembered the sad look on Castiel’s face as he had left. But then Mrs. Christian remembered the way that Castiel had hesitated before telling Dean Winchester that he remembered essentially nothing of the entire day, and how suspicious such a thing was when it was clear to her that the pair had not gone drinking until the late afternoon.

Could it be that Castiel had not forgotten anything at all? Could it be that he was ashamed of his lustful behaviour last night? Did he believe that perhaps Dean Winchester did not want him and thus did not want to burden the freckled man with his affections? And oh! Was Castiel a raging homosexual like Dean Winchester was too?! 

The revelation was too much for Mrs. Christian.

Fearing that she would lose consciousness once more, she again closed her shop early for the second time that week, and spent the rest of the day lying in bed, trying to fall asleep but failing, for a strange heaviness had settled over her heart, and she was not quite sure if it was still homophobia or perchance not...something else.

The next day, Mrs. Christian was as busy as a bee. To be fair, she had always been this way, but knowing now that the fate of the town was resting on her shoulders, she got out of bed with purpose anew, ready to seize the day. By six o’ clock that Friday morning, she had already dealt with all matters pertaining to her business and her contract with Millionaire Milk Inc. (quite an accomplishment as she had only risen from bed an hour earlier). After making sure all her livestock was fed (by bossing around her new site manager), she finally had breakfast at seven-thirty, and then, after her fruitful conversation yesterday with Cookie Baker, she prepared to meet the lesbian restaurateur for eight o’ clock sharp as they had agreed upon yesterday morning (their one o’ clock appointment had been rescheduled after Eve Christian’s sobbing session had taken up too much of Cookie’s free time on Thursday).

Mrs. Christian did not know why but she felt particularly nervous about seeing Cookie today. Perhaps it was the monumental task that they would be taking up, and the sheer importance of it which led Mrs. Christian today to put on make-up for the first time in fifteen years. It was dressed in her Sunday best that she arrived at last at the diner, and when she did, Cookie Baker was so shocked to see the change in her appearance that she dropped her cane altogether. 

“Well, look at you,” Cookie said and much to Eve’s dismay, Cookie, upon recollecting her cane, struck her on the shoulder. “Don’t you clean up nice.”

Mrs. Christian hmphed, muttered something about the gravity of their task, and then, fixing her hat, implored Cookie to accompany her to the mayor’s office. But Cookie did not seem at all amenable to her first course of action against the devil worshippers in their town.

“Now look,” Cookie said, as they seated themselves at a booth. Both Cookie Baker and Eve Christian had agreed to close their shops one day early, on the pretence that it was for the holidays, when it was in fact due to the pressing matter at hand. “I can’t lie—there’s certainly something fishy about the Winchesters, but I’ll have you know that Woody’s not the only one who’s taken a liking to them in this town. I’m fond of the boys myself. Dean’s a particularly sensitive kid—reminds me of my son—and it wouldn’t do good to act all rashly based on the word of one grumpy old woman.”

At this, Mrs. Christian was outraged.

“Oh, Cookie, don’t you think anything of me! Of all our years of friendship!”

“When have we ever been friends, Ev—”

“Why, all the way up to the eleventh grade, Cookie! Before you ran off with that vile wo—”

“Eve Karen Christian, you finish that sentence, and I swear it’ll be the last thing you ever do!”

Mrs. Christian, like in all situations where she ever felt stressed, began bawling. Cookie sighed in exasperation, pulled several paper napkins from the dispenser at their table and handed them to her. After several moments, “I d-don’t k-know why you think I’m a l-liar, Cookie!” Mrs. Christian sobbed, as she blew her nose loudly. “You haven’t the faintest idea how b-badly you hurt me when y-you eloped with Randy Gaiman’s wife! And without ever informing m-me of your lesbianism! Y-You were my best friend, Cookie, and you d-didn’t trust me at all!”

Cookie Baker pursed her lips. Oh, they had not talked so much in years, and judging by the expression on her face, she was regretting what she had done to Eve all those years ago! But perhaps Mrs. Christian was wrong, for when Cookie Baker did open her mouth again, it was only to accuse her of lying once more!

“Well, Eve, you’re always going on about being British—”

“I showed you my birth certificate, Cookie! It says I was born in Richmond! You saw it with your own eyes!”

“Eve, it says your birthplace was _Canada_ —”

“ _Oh_? Then why _,_ Cookie, does it also say _British_ Columbia, huh! Fancy yourself that!” 

“Eve, that’s a province in Cana—” Cookie Baker sighed. “Never mind.” 

Silence reigned down on them for many moments after that, and Eve Christian was instantly reminded of that catastrophic and awkward diner date that Dean Winchester had taken Castiel on just two mornings ago. She looked up then, to verify that there was no homosexual mistletoe hanging traitorously above their heads like that day, but there was none at all, most likely because Cookie Baker had the plant stuffed inside her pocket like last time.

But then at last the silence broke. Cookie rubbed at her temples and then after a heavy sigh, she said, “Alright, Eve. Fine. Say I believe you. Say that the Winchesters have their heads up Lucifer’s ass. What d’you expect us to do? It took years to drive the last batch of Satanists out of Lebanon when they all came in ’66. Hell, they even got my granddaddy to join them. Now you’re saying two old ladies can dismantle their entire network? The Winchesters have been here nigh on a decade now!”

Twenty minutes later, Cookie Baker knew exactly how Mrs. Christian intended to throw out the Winchesters, for they were at the mayor’s office just like Mrs. Christian had wanted. Cookie had only accompanied her on the promise that they would simply ask the mayor if he had any more information about the brothers. She had forbidden Mrs. Christian from outright accusing them of being devil worshippers, and Mrs. Christian had reluctantly agreed. Upon their arrival though, the young man at the front desk took one look at Mrs. Christian and woefully informed them that the mayor, Guy Bourne, was alas ill with smallpox for the second time that year. However, before Mrs. Christian could even let out a single squeak to express her displeasure, Cookie Baker whispered something to the man, and much to Mrs. Christian’s astonishment, he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, wow, it’s a miracle! Mayor Bourne just texted me! He’s okay now!” and Mrs. Christian could not help but beam at her good fortune—oh, she had not been able to see the mayor for months so how lucky it was that he was finally well! She hoped it was a sign of things to come.

However, perhaps the mayor was not as recovered from his various illnesses as he had told his front desk man, for when Eve Christian walked through the door, the man seemed shocked, and clutched at his heart, gasping, “I think I’m having a heart attack!”. Mrs. Christian almost fainted, such was her concern, but then, as soon as Cookie coincidentally entered the room, the mayor patted his chest, coughed exactly one time, and murmured, “Oh…false call,” and sat back down at his desk remarkably quick.

Oh, the mayor was a man of mystery and much wonder to Mrs. Christian for sure! When he had first been elected, he had been in excellent health, and she had frequently visited him to lodge a great many number of complaints about a great many number of things in the hopes that he would improve their town. He had listened to her intently, unlike the previous mayor who had often told Eve that because she was a woman, she would be better off spending her time at home tending to the housework and caring for her grandchildren (he had not paid attention when she had informed him that she did not have any children to begin with, so acquiring grandchildren at her age would be a bit difficult). Oh, Mayor Bourne, however, had been a breath of fresh air! She had been quite saddened when his health had taken a turn for the worse after their forty-sixth meeting in a row, where Mrs. Christian had preached to him about the dangers of radiation coming from wireless internet. Nonetheless, she had delivered him many a _Get Well Soon_ card and he had, despite his ill health, always taken the time to respond to her correspondence with a _Thank You_ card of his own). There were some in the town who did not like him, on account of the fact that he did not have an Adam’s apple, but Mrs. Christian had never understood this sentiment, for though he may have lacked an anatomical trait that most males she knew possessed, he was nonetheless the most respectable gentleman in Lebanon (after her late husband) and, in fact, Mayor Bourne had firmly once told her that not having one did not make him any less of a man.

Today, he was no less polite. When Mrs. Christian relayed her concerns about the Winchesters to him, he quickly took out the town ledger and confirmed that he still did not have any new information about the brothers as they did not seem to live on any official property belonging to the town of Lebanon, Kansas. It was then that Mrs. Christian could not hold back her fears about devil worship, which unfortunately culminated in Cookie glaring at her, but Mayor Bourne quickly assured her that ever since the 1966 Demon Debacle, Lebanon had remained on high alert for such suspicious activity and none had been detected, although a few grave desecrations and a strangely global meteor shower in 2013 had alarmed them for a few brief moments.

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Christian could not help but be disappointed, and she wailed about her misgivings about the Winchesters for a good two hours until Mayor Bourne, to her horror, suddenly began wheezing in his chair, and in much distress informed them that he had to rush to the hospital, as he suspected that he was about to go into anaphylactic shock due to his dust allergy.

After this, Mrs. Christian and Cookie Baker made their way back out of the mayor’s office, and as soon as they hit the street, Cookie in no uncertain terms told her to “drop it” which Mrs. Christian understood to mean that Cookie no longer believed in her. Mrs. Christian was just about to start crying, but then the most wonderful thing of all happened: Samuel Winchester appeared, and he was talking very _loudly_ on his phone!

“Look, I just dropped off Jack at his baking class, okay, but man, Dean, do I really have to remind you that we kinda need to finish this job? So I don’t know why you’re heading to Woody Farmer’s place right now when I could really use some back-up. I mean, Cas is busy getting ready for his date and Jody’s counting on us, Dean! She had to do another exorcism in Sioux Falls last night and the demon we’ve got in our dungeon isn’t gonna talk to me alone.”

Oh, how Cookie’s face turned pale at Samuel Winchester’s words! Meanwhile, Mrs. Christian, who had been on the verge of tears could now only think to cry with triumph! Cookie shook terribly, no doubt with the horrified realization that Mrs. Christian had been right all along, and it seemed that she was unable to stand upright even with her cane to support her. Mrs. Christian quickly took her hand, the poor thing, and oh, how unexpectedly delightful and warm Cookie’s hand felt in her own. But then she remembered that Cookie was a lesbian, and one who was notorious for her homosexual activities in Lebanon, and Mrs. Christian’s body too began to shudder then with homophobic shock, for she feared what the townspeople would think of her if they saw their hands entwined.

Peculiarly though, she could not get herself to let go.

They listened to Samuel Winchester argue with his brother, and many times he mentioned how they still had to “talk about whatever the hell Dean did with Cas the other day” because apparently, Samuel was still quite vexed with “how stupidly drunk” the city man had been, and he made a point to tell his brother that he very much disapproved, at last saying with much exasperation, “Dean, he’s freshly human and you’re ruining him before he even has the chance to experience the world for himself!”. After this, Samuel seemed ashamed, because perhaps he had reproached his brother too harshly, and he tried to make it up with gentle talk to his brother next, but his wording was so horrific that it made both Eve and Cookie shake in their boots. 

“They’re insane,” Cookie mumbled weakly, again and again ten minutes later, when they were in her automobile and on the way to Woody’s farm to warn him. After hearing Samuel speak of fresh humans, they had also grown concerned that perhaps Dean Winchester was on his way to slaughter the elderly man, perhaps to obtain his blood for some demonic ritual, and as such, Eve and Cookie had come prepared with loaded guns. To think that Mrs. Christian had been sympathizing with Dean Winchester’s broken heart just yesterday morning when it was clear to her now that he was in fact a cold-blooded killer—the sheer horror!

What Mrs. Christian did not know, however, was that she would be doing it again just ten minutes later.

They were not particularly graceful sneaking around Woody’s farm, on account of them being two old ladies past their prime, and not to mention that Cookie had always had trouble with one of her legs from birth, one being five inches shorter than the other. They did not know where to find Woody either, for Mrs. Christian’s neighbour had quite a sizable property, so they tried the house first, and then the small barn where Woody kept his chickens, and it was a good thing that they did, for that was exactly where they found the two men.

It seemed that Dean Winchester had not been there long. Woody was still alive, for one, and lazily tossing feed to his birds from a rusting pail. Dean Winchester, however, was shuffling along behind him, hands in his pockets, and it was clear that something was troubling him because his jaw was once again clenched, though his lips seemed to quiver against his volition.

Then at last, he broke his silence.

“How’d you know?” Dean said, and he spoke the words as if they contained a closely-guarded secret, something so close to his heart that it might shatter him whole should the secret get out. “How’d you know I’m—I thought no one could tell.”

At the freckled devil worshipper’s words, Woody paused in his feeding and turned around to face the boy. He put down his pail, wiped his hands on the cloth hanging from his belt and Mrs. Christian was once again astonished to find Woody’s mouth curling into a gentle smile, something she had not seen in years, at least not since Woody had gone on his evening strolls with Mr. Christian. Oh, her husband had always had such a wonderful sense of humour!

“C’mon, Dean,” Woody said. “How d’you think?”

Frankly Mrs. Christian could not make heads or tails of their conversation, but she supposed that it was due to the fact that she had only just arrived. But perhaps Dean himself could not follow Woody’s train of thought either for he looked unsure of himself, and when Woody saw that confusion written all over Dean’s face, he chuckled.

“Son, you’ve really been strugglin’ huh?” Woody said and perhaps Woody’s serious brown eyes were too much for Dean because he could not seem to meet Woody’s gaze. “But you’re gonna be fine, you know that? Loved a man myself. In the biblical sense. And it turned out okay.”

At Woody’s words, Mrs. Christian felt a strange chill spreading over her body. Surely Woody could not mean…? Surely loving a man in the biblical sense meant a love as pure and as innocent as Mrs. Christian’s love for the Lord! Oh, but how difficult it had suddenly become to breathe!

“Of course, it was harder back in the day. He had a wife, and my African heritage didn’t make it any easier for the two of us to associate with one another for quite some time but…when we were together—hell, it sure was worth it.”

Woody went quiet then, picked up his pail and started feeding his chickens again, and perhaps it was his intention to make the freckled ruffian think, for it seemed that Dean needed some time to process what Woody had said. Mrs. Christian, however, had collapsed right into Cookie’s arms, and Cookie, unable to support her weight, had also collapsed, so that they now lay in an unbecoming heap on the floor. Cookie seemed to sense that Mrs. Christian was about to start wailing, for she pressed her hand tightly over Mrs. Christian’s mouth until the homophobic shock coursing through Mrs. Christian’s body at last receded, and then Mrs. Christian could only stare at Cookie for some minutes in dumbfounded silence with her mouth wide open, until at last she came back to her senses and they pulled themselves up off the floor.

“Oh, Cookie, did you know Woody was one of your people?” she exclaimed, for now she could not deny what Woody had meant by his words. Oh, how dreadful! How unsavoury! No wonder she had never liked Woody! Perhaps instinctually she had known what Woody was, and now she could only think of the poor woman whose husband had been homosexually entangled with the farmer! How unfortunate! Oh, and what would have Mr. Christian thought, had he known what his friend had been doing all these years! Oh lord, what a scandal, to think that Woody may have been bedding a man just mere minutes before he would call her husband to go exercise with some more!

Cookie, for her part, was watching Mrs. Christian’s face very carefully and Mrs. Christian got the vague impression that the lesbian restaurateur had known Woody’s reason for bachelorhood for quite some time. At this, Mrs. Christian frowned, and made a note to give her friend an earful later, but for now, Mrs. Christian could not help but babble. What exciting and fresh gossip for a town that sometimes seemed so dull! She was no busybody, but goodness gracious, even she had her limits!

But before Mrs. Christian could begin to theorize who Woody’s mystery lover had been, Dean Winchester spoke then, suddenly and brokenly, as if something that he had been keeping at bay for years could no longer be contained. He shook mightily, one hand clenched into a fist at his side, but when his voice at last escaped his throat, it was but a whisper.

“I can’t be with him, alright?” Dean said and those very words seemed to tear him into pieces. “It’s not going to be _okay_. He doesn’t want me and—and I’m no good for him anyway. I’d ruin him. I’d make his life miserable. He’s perfect in every way and all I’m capable of is destruction.”

Mrs. Christian could not agree more with the hooligan’s words, but Woody frowned and when Mrs. Christian turned back to glance at Cookie, it was only to see that Cookie had tears of emotion welling up in her eyes, for it seemed that she had forgotten that the freckled ruffian was a devil worshipper. Woody dropped his bucket with a loud clang that had his chickens fleeing, and he strode over to the boy with purpose. To both Dean Winchester and Mrs. Christian’s surprise, Woody Farmer pulled Dean into his arms like a father to a son, and thumped him many times across his back before rustling his hair affectionately, after which he held Dean in a simple embrace. Dean instantly seemed to melt, as if all his life he had not had an ounce of affection bestowed upon him in any way, and despite all her fears about the Winchesters’ demonic ways, she could not help but begin weeping herself, for now she believed that no doubt the Winchesters had turned to Satanism on account of a difficult childhood. Eve Christian’s parents had been the same way, distant and disdainful for she had never been the son that they had wanted, and though Mrs. Christian had not turned to devil worship and serial murdering, she could now see how it could have happened.

Perhaps Mrs. Christian was sobbing a tad bit too noisily for Cookie took her hand, and then Mrs. Christian threw herself into the lesbian baker’s arms, which caused the both of them to fall into a puddle on the floor yet again. When Mrs. Christian at last composed herself, it was to see that Woody and Dean had separated, though Woody was standing there with a gentle hand remaining on Dean Winchester’s shoulder, and Dean was once again avoiding the farmer’s gaze in favour of staring at his own two feet.

“Doesn’t seem to me you’re any less deservin’ of love than anybody else,” Woody said and Dean Winchester swallowed and shut his eyes and Mrs. Christian felt her heart shatter for a single lonely tear slipped down Dean Winchester’s cheek just then, at last betraying the effect that Woody’s kind words was having on him. “And I don’t think you showed up here today just to help ease an old man’s boredom.”

Woody smiled and patted Dean’s shoulder before placing a sympathetic hand to the side of Dean’s face. “Look, son, just tell him, okay? Tell him and I promise you’ll feel better. I’ve seen the way he looks at you—don’t act so surprised, you know it too—so quit wastin’ time and get on with it because I’d bet all my money that he’s been wanting to get on with it too.”

And oh, how Dean Winchester seemed a little less burdened just then, even as the sun set and darkness cloaked the earth! How hope seemed to trickle into him slowly and how his eyes seemed a little less downtrodden, as if perhaps he too was beginning to see the future that Woody had already envisioned for him! And Eve turned to Cookie and they exchanged happy gay smiles, for alas, Eve Christian had also forgotten for a moment that she was a homophobic old woman and that Dean Winchester was a murdering Satanist.

Everything in the world seemed right for a moment, just in time for the holidays, and with the cooling effects of the night breeze and the way that the snow was sparkling under the moonlight tonight as rainbow Christmas lights blinked from houses in the distance, Mrs. Christian couldn’t help but feel at peace. But then Woody Farmer opened his mouth and what he said had both Eve and Cookie clutching each other in fear.

“You’re not a destroyer, Dean,” he said and he patted Dean’s face one last time before dropping his hand. “You help people. I’ve heard the stories from the other hunters—how many a time you’ve conversed with the devil himself, how brave you were when your brother was possessed. When my cows were getting slaughtered last spring, you and Sam opened my eyes to the supernatural. You’ve helped this world, and you’re spreadin’ a good message doin’ it.”

After this, Dean thanked the man quietly, seemingly too emotional to say anything else, and Mrs. Christian and Cookie Baker hid behind a bale of hay as he departed for home. Woody went back to feeding his chickens, wearing a soft smile that did not leave his face even after Dean was gone, and when all seemed silent, Eve and Cookie scurried back to the baker’s automobile, to discuss all that they had found out.

Oh, how upset Cookie was to discover that Woody was in league with the Winchesters, and by extension, the devil himself! She raged at the farmer’s betrayal, likely remembering the same heartbreak she had felt when her grandfather had joined the cultists who had come to their town in ’66. Mrs. Christian cooed sympathetically, caressed the lesbian’s face to comfort her, and then Mrs. Christian thought much about what ‘message’ Woody had praised Dean Winchester for spreading across the world. She shuddered to think of it, and wondered aloud whether Woody had been referring to what she had only heard rumours about—the homosexual agenda—but Cookie scowled at this and hit her squarely in the forehead with her cane so Mrs. Christian assumed that this message had to do more with a satanic agenda than anything else.

At last, they drove home, which was not far in the case of Mrs. Christian for she lived right beside Woody Farmer, but upon confessing her fears about going there now that she knew what kind of man he was, Cookie Baker reluctantly agreed to let her stay over at her apartment above the diner. But soon enough, they discovered that sleep was not intended for them tonight, for when Cookie Baker parked her car in front of their collective establishments, they saw Dean Winchester there, parked right up ahead, collecting his son from his baking class.

“Cookie,” Mrs. Christian said suddenly, “we must follow them home.”

Cookie stared at her with her mouth agape.

“Have you lost the few brain cells you have left, Eve?” she demanded but Mrs. Christian’s resolve did not waver.

“Cookie, think of it! They’ve ensnared Woody Farmer and goodness knows who else! Nobody knows where they live—surely their home must be the base of their operations! Perhaps if we find out where they go, we can inform Mayor Bourne and he can call the FBI people to raid them!”

And maybe because Cookie’s heart was stinging so much at the mere mention of Woody’s name, that when Dean Winchester at last departed, Cookie impulsively turned the key to her own automobile and they soon found themselves tailing the roaring devil machine that the Winchesters called a car.

Oh, Mrs. Christian was so deeply frightened by what they might find, and instantly began to regret what they were doing, especially once they found themselves on an unmarked road leaving Lebanon. But they did not have to go far because soon enough, Dean Winchester and Jack Kline were parked on the side of the road, and to Mrs. Christian’s amazement, they were at the strange door in the side of the hill that her daddy had once talked about! 

Quietly parking down the road, they made their way up to the door with much trepidation, and because Dean Winchester and Jack Kline had still not entered, they kept their distance, obscuring themselves in a groove in the side of the hill.

Dean was busy organizing something in his trunk, and to both Eve and Cookie’s collective horror, it was filled with weapons. Oh, how they shook then, and Mrs. Christian could not help but open her mouth to wail into the night at the sight of so many knives, swords, stakes and bullets! But once again, Cookie seemed to know what Mrs. Christian intended to do, for just as Mrs. Christian was about to cry out, she slapped her hand over Mrs. Christian's mouth.

For many minutes, the freckled hooligan shuffled through his weaponry, and it became apparent that he wanted to be left alone, for he looked at his son many times in an expectant way. But Jack Kline made no indication that he understood, perhaps drunk like the city man, and instead, he inched closer to Dean, until the two men stood shoulder to shoulder.

“Hey, Dean,” he said brightly, and Dean reluctantly turned to him, once again in a way that suggested that he wanted his son to leave already. “Can I ask you a question?”

Dean grunted, something unintelligible, and how tragic, Mrs. Christian thought, for these last few days, the man had been the most coherent she had ever known him to be.

The drunkard child, however, took this grunt as assent, and then he said something that made the freckled man very angry.

“Have you been crying?” Jack asked, and Dean slammed the Impala’s trunk shut, barked a few words that seemed to frighten the child very much for he dropped the backpack that he had been holding and scuttled through the door in the side of the hill.

After this, Mrs. Christian and Cookie Baker watched with bated breath as Dean Winchester leaned over his car, two hands braced on the trunk, and he exhaled quite heavily and deeply as he tried to calm himself down. But relaxation was not in the schedule today, because just then, there was another car heading down the road, and lo and behold, it was the city man, returned from his date! 

This seemed to make Dean Winchester very afraid for though he straightened up, he began to breathe even more quickly, and it occurred to Mrs. Christian that he was in fact on the verge of hyperventilating. As Castiel approached him, Dean Winchester looked like he wanted to hide, but as he could not, he took several slow deep breaths, and then plastering on a painfully strained smile, he spoke, his voice still shaky.

“Uh, hey, how was your date?” he said and the city man smiled and told him it went very nicely.

At this, Dean looked troubled and Mrs. Christian pouted and tsked, for she could not help but act compassionately for this particular homosexual, but alas, he was also a devil worshipper which made Mrs. Christian feel rather conflicted.

“So, uh, you were gone a while, huh,” Dean said and he swallowed and fumbled with the Impala’s keys in his hands, before dropping them altogether. “You, uh, score or what?”

The city man shifted on his feet, clutched his own keys tightly as if he did not want to drop them like the other man had just done. 

"I think what happened was very enlightening," he said and Dean Winchester laughed.

"Oh, I bet," Dean said, and he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, but Mrs. Christian thought she heard the sound of Dean Winchester's heart shattering at that very moment.

"Exactly," the city man said, and he smiled again, before he, too, went through the secret door, but before he did, he paused and pressed his hand to Dean Winchester's shoulder, gazed at him in such an intense manner that it seemed to take Dean Winchester's breath away, and when he was at last gone, Dean grasped his arm where Castiel had touched him, as if burned.

For a moment, it seemed everything was alright.

But then, as if someone had wounded him gravely, Dean collapsed all of a sudden, sunk down to his knees and exhaled harsh and heavy, hands dug into the earth, and it looked like he wanted to do nothing more than to cry.

But if he did, from their vantage point, neither Eve nor Cookie could see it.

He stayed where he was, for such a long time that it seemed that the temperature dropped a few more degrees, and their bodies felt like ice, but finally, when Mrs. Christian thought she could take no more, Dean pulled himself up at last and went into his home.

"Oh, he is hurting, that boy," Cookie whispered, and Mrs. Christian, for the first time in her life, could think of nothing more apt to say.

Perhaps then they would have left. Perhaps they would have gone back to Cookie's apartment and forgotten the whole affair, so heavy were their hearts for Dean Winchester, but then the door in the side of the hill opened once more and Jack Kline reemerged, come to collect the backpack he had dropped earlier in his haste.

He was almost back to the door when something slipped from a pocket in his bag, and when he stooped to pick it up, they could see that it was a vial of clear liquid.

"Oh, my holy water!" he said and he grinned and threw it back into his backpack. "I'm gonna need that for the demon tonight."

And it was this statement, Mrs. Christian thought, that would be the reason why they didn't drive back to Lebanon.

As Jack Kline skipped back through the door in the side of the hill, he let it swing shut behind him, but before it could, Mrs. Christian grabbed the handle. 

"Come on, Cookie," she said and Cookie stared at her, mouth wide open with horror. "If they intend to consort with a demon tonight, we must stop them at once." 

As it was, Mrs. Christian had always wanted to be the town hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah i'm super sorry for how late this chapter came. i got super side-tracked by christmas stuff! this was definitely a long one and a plotty one at that. it wasn't as cracky as i had planned for, but i hope you all still liked it and next chapter, we'll be right back to the usual madness. as you can probably imagine, it's a really deancas heavy chapter coming up :P
> 
> anyway, i hope you all have an amazing week! merry christmas and happy holidays <3 i'll be back on the 26 for the next chapter (although i'm lowkey worried the next chapter will get ridiculously long again like today's was so if it does and i end up needing a little bit more time, i'll post a little note on my tumblr [here](http://pray4jensen.tumblr.com) if anything changes to the posting schedule). 
> 
> see you soon! <3


	7. Saturday: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i updated this story last week, it was christmas but now it is a whole new year! happy 2021 guys and i really hope this year will be better than the last! <3
> 
> i'm super sorry for the delay. i got hit with a bunch of writer's block and this chapter is so, so long that i had to do what i really don't like to do, which is split this chapter into two parts again. i won't be reformatting the two parts into one chapter like i did with chapter six though, so "saturday" will be two separate chapters because put together, i think it might hit like 20k and that is madness. when i started this story, i was so confident that the whole thing would be under 20k so, uh, i guess the story really got away from me haha
> 
> i also promised that this chapter would be more cracky and deancas heavy than the last but...plot happened. what i had planned for won't appear until part 2 of this chapter unfortunately, so i promise, next chapter, that more cracky deancas stuff will definitely happen!
> 
> chapter warnings: homophobia from mrs. christian as usual 
> 
> * also just to reiterate, i merged part 1 and 2 of chapter six on christmas, so if you've been following this story for some time but have no clue why mrs. christian and cookie baker are in the men of letters bunker, please give ch. 6 another glance because there's like a brand-new 6k there waiting to be read :P

Oh, how she instantly regretted everything!

Eve Christian and Cookie Baker had only just entered the strange place that the Winchesters called home a moment ago, but already Mrs. Christian was wondering what madness had overtaken her to come here in the first place. Perhaps it was the effect of the radiation no doubt being emitted by Cookie, for Mrs. Christian had often heard that homosexuals possessed a special gay radar which enabled them to communicate and receive signals of queer desire. The thought of that frightened Mrs. Christian greatly, for she had been born during the Second World War and had spent a great deal of her life being frightened of potential nuclear disasters. The word ‘radiation’ had often been associated with these events as well as the word ‘death’ and Mrs. Christian was not quite ready to enter heaven’s gates just yet, for she hoped to live to an even one hundred and there was still a good amount of time left. However, she was not about to let Cookie know that she had already lost her nerve in the three seconds since they had gone through the door in the side of the hill, so she kept her mouth shut, although nevertheless made a mental note to ask her about how harmful gaydar radiation was later.

As it was, this place did not seem like any home Mrs. Christian had ever visited. They were in some stairwell which Jack Kline was skipping down ever so merrily up ahead, and it seemed to lead to yet another door. They did not dare follow, and watched as the little spawn of Satan exited the stairwell, and when they no longer heard him, it was only then that Mrs. Christian opened her mouth.

But Cookie cut her off before she could even begin.

“Eve Karen Christian, this is absolutely the most foolish thing you have ever done in your entire life!” she said and, to Mrs. Christian’s utter grief, Cookie whacked her several times across the back with her cane. “Now the hell out of here before the Winchesters file a breaking and entering charge against us!”

Mrs. Christian wished to argue, for it seemed the natural course of action if she did not want Cookie to truly know how very much in agreement she was with the idea of leaving, but to her horror, when Cookie tried to open the door to the outside, it would not budge. Strange symbols flashed across the metal, as if demanding some special key or password that they did not possess.

They were trapped!

Oh, how Mrs. Christian cursed the Winchesters then, and when she realized that she would be spending her Christmas Eve imprisoned here, she only cursed them harder! For Saturday would come soon enough, the hours drawing ever so closer to midnight, and she could only think of weeping at the thought that Mr. Christian’s tombstone would be without its traditional poinsettias for the holidays this year, not to mention how alone her Rottweiler pups must be (oh, she had forgotten to feed them tonight, her poor purebred babies!).

They waited for the hours to pass. They could not go down the stairwell right away, fearing that the Winchesters would catch them, so Mrs. Christian had reasoned that the best tactic would be to wait until they were fast asleep, after which she and Cookie could enter more secretively. Cookie had agreed, if only because the lesbian baker hoped to find a different exit out of this strange place now that the front door refused to open, but Mrs. Christian, not wanting to appear uncourageous, pretended that she was still concerned with foiling the diabolical plans of the Winchester brothers, rather than saving her own hide (which was the uncomfortable truth).

It turned out that Cookie did not take lightly to being locked in. She frequently glowered at Mrs. Christian that night, muttered things under her breath that sounded like insults, and would often, for no apparent reason (other than their current predicament), hit Mrs. Christian with her cane. It made Mrs. Christian very glad that they had left their shotguns behind in Cookie’s vehicle, for she was quickly becoming afraid that her ambition of becoming a century old may not come to pass after all, such were the lesbian baker’s thrashings.

Mrs. Christian, however, could at the very least say that she was no stranger to being locked in—or out, for that matter. It had been an unfortunate quirk of her husband’s. Many times, Mrs. Christian had come home from the shops to find that Mr. Christian had mistakenly latched the door shut with the chain from the inside, thereby making it quite difficult for her to enter despite her key. She would have to call for him then, through the crack of the door, and Mr. Christian would scurry over, quite embarrassed and often red-faced and sweating, such would be the poor man’s humiliation. Oftentimes, he would be unclothed, save for a robe thrown over his body, for he had explained to her that he often latched the door with the chain lock when he showered, afraid of what an intruder might do to him when he was at his most vulnerable. “Oh, you silly man!” she had laughed, for many a time these same nights she had found their house’s backdoor hanging wide open! But he had explained to her that he did not fear intruders coming in through the rear, for his backdoor opened to Woody, as his friend’s farm was that way, and he had assured her that should there ever be any trouble at the front, his good friend would surely come to his rescue, thrusting into his rear.

It was perhaps because Mrs. Christian became so lost in her fond reminiscences of her husband’s endearing habits that she did not get to her habitual weeping and did not notice the time pass at all, and when Cookie at last rapped her across the forehead with her cane imploring her to get up, she did not feel the same irritation that Cookie felt, and rather happily rose, eager to find an escape route. 

Oh, but the shock that jolted the two old ladies when they at last opened the second door!

It was a massive place, the Winchester home, for it appeared to have been built deep underground, the bunker of the fifties that the townspeople of Lebanon had heard so many rumours about! They trembled as they made their way down a second staircase, feeling blinded by all the lights that powered a large room that seemed to be more suitable for making war plans rather than serving as the entrance to somebody’s house, and just beyond that, there was a massive library. Mrs. Christian was so overwhelmed that she began to sob incoherently, and Cookie Baker, alarmed by the attention that Eve may draw, ushered her quickly into a nearby closet so as to muffle the sounds of her misery. When Mrs. Christian at last came out of the closet, she felt clearer, as if she knew things about herself that she had not known before, for a sudden courage had overtaken her in the darkness there, and she no longer wanted to leave this place—she was ready to save Lebanon from the Satanists after all, for if they had such great resources at their disposal, it was clear to her how imperative it was to stop them, and she told Cookie this, though Cookie did not agree with her.

Cookie could only think of leaving, and she hobbled to and fro with great determination, one finger pushing back her librarianesque glasses as she squinted for another exit (her eyesight had worsened as of late and it seemed that she was very much in need of new spectacles). It was in a frenzy that they shuffled throughout the bunker and its many passageways, but the longer they moved about, the wilder Cookie’s curly grey locks became, and even Mrs. Christian was huffing and puffing with their efforts. Tragically, however, it soon became clear to them that there was no hope at all. It was a labyrinth, and the only way they would be able to navigate it would be by following someone who knew the way out.

Fortunately, it did not take them long to find that someone.

At three in the morning on Christmas Eve, with his back to the door and a big bowl of nauseatingly sugary cereal laid out before him, was Jack Kline, happily munching away at his late night snack, a plastic decoder ring squeezed tight around his finger—he had at last collected them all.

They crept closer for a better view, in fact right into the kitchen, and hid behind a large steel island counter, perhaps with the hope that the child might get up and go out for some air, or maybe remember that he had yet another item to recover, one that he may have dropped outside when Dean Winchester had yelled at him, at which point they would follow him and escape this prison (or this was at least what Mrs. Christian told Cookie, for the lesbian baker seemed more and more murderous by the second, and Mrs. Christian could think of no other way to appease her).

Jack Kline of course did no such thing.

For a good twenty minutes, he chewed his cereal thoughtfully, and when at last he was done, rather than returning to bed, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a great many other rings, no doubt to attempt to solve the puzzle at the back of his cereal box. At this, both ladies let out sighs of disappointment, and they watched for an irritably long time as the child attempted to uncover the secret message, but good lord, he must have had the brain power of a two year old for he could not quite seem to work it out! After struggling greatly, he let out a groan of frustration and put his head in his arms on the table, upset no doubt, and Mrs. Christian half-expected the beginning of a toddler tantrum, except what happened then was far worse.

Jack Kline…fell fast asleep.

Oh lord, how terribly Cookie fought with her then, for it seemed that the feeble plan that Mrs. Christian had hastily concocted was quickly falling to shambles! Of course, the chances that the child would unwittingly lead them back outside had always been slim to none, but Mrs. Christian could not help but feel a tad bit disheartened anyway, for she had prayed to the Lord for deliverance when Cookie had not been looking and the Almighty had let her down once again.

It seemed, however, that the situation was only about to get worse.

As Jack Kline snored, Cookie began whacking her with her cane steadily and mercilessly, and Mrs. Christian could not help but moan in her misery, which led to both ladies fussing an enormous amount in a rather vocal manner. In fact, they were so loud that perhaps it could only be expected that soon enough the devil child would reawaken, and to their horror, this was exactly what happened, for during a particularly tortured wail, Mrs. Christian threw her head back only to find that the devil child was towering above them—oh goodness gracious, they had been discovered!

Jack Kline frowned at them with much confusion furrowing his brow, and Cookie, perhaps not knowing what else to do, pulled them up to their feet and placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“You’re dreaming,” Cookie said sternly, and the boy’s frown only deepened, and for many moments, they waited with fear coursing through their bodies at what the child would do. Would he call for his parents? Would he cause such a ruckus that the Winchester brothers and their city man friend would dismember the old ladies on the spot in their fury, perhaps using their body parts for strange rituals of devil worship later?

But it was not to be.

Instead, the child blinked once, long and slow, before his lips curled into a goofy smile and, “I _am_ dreaming, aren’t I!” he exclaimed most joyously, and to their shock, he embraced the both of them. “I’ve never done that before! I thought it was because…angels can’t.”

Mrs. Christian and Cookie Baker exchanged bemused looks but nevertheless mumbled words of encouragement, nodded at the child with approval many times, and then it seemed that the lesbian baker had quite the idea for she strengthened her grip on Jack’s shoulder.

“Yes, exactly, Jack, you’re dreaming!” Cookie said and the child gave her a most wonderous smile, an elation that Mrs. Christian could simply not understand, but then she remembered that this child was no doubt a drunkard like his city man father. “Could you take us outside please? Sadly we’ve become a little lost but we came here in your dream with some sweets for you, Jack, in our car, and we wouldn’t want you to wake up without having had the chance to taste them now, would we?”

At this, the child frowned once again.

“Dean says I’m not allowed to go outside after dark by myself. And he said not to take candy from strangers, especially people who drive white vans because they’re pedicures.”

The child then began to think deeply, although how much deeper he could truly go, Mrs. Christian was not quite certain. Nonetheless, Cookie once again exchanged a worried look with her, for it would not favour them if the child got any ideas in his head, especially ideas that involved him perhaps waking his caregivers and asking them for parental permission to be out and about in the middle of the night, so it was no wonder that Mrs. Christian pushed Cookie aside violently and grasped the boy by his shoulders, fibbing harder than she had ever had to do in her entire lifetime (not that Mrs. Christian had a penchant for lying for she was a good Christian woman who loved thy neighbour). 

“Oh, but Jack, we are not in possession of such a white truck and we’re not strangers, you see, for surely you must remember my excellent shop that you visit so frequently with your fathers— _Good Christian Grocery_! We are…well, _I’m_ one of your daddy’s good friends, as it so happens, and this…this here is my beloved wife, Cookie!” 

Mrs. Christian then wrapped an arm around Cookie’s waist and Cookie stared at her with so much wide-eyed shock that Mrs. Christian nearly keeled over herself, for the sudden bolt of homophobia that flooded her at that instant was almost too much! Oh, lord, what in the world had she been thinking?! How could she have come up with such a horrid lie, when she had been married to one of the most outstanding heterosexual men in all of Lebanon! Clearly, she had been spending too much time with this lesbian woman and clearly the gaydar radiation coming off the baker’s body had addled Eve Christian’s brains completely!

In horror at her own actions, her knees gave out and she went crashing to the floor, a dozen pots and pans clattering about the kitchen with loud clangs as one of her legs caught a nearby shelf. Their shock then turned to terror for they could hear running feet in the distance, the noise having woken the entire household no doubt, and Mrs. Christian began to wail in earnest, the fright of it all being too much for her.

“Oh, if only we were invisible, unable to be seen or heard!” Mrs. Christian cried out, and then a very odd thing happened.

For a moment, time seemed to freeze, Jack Kline’s eyes glowing a bright gold colour as he said excitedly, “I can do that!” and then, when the clocks once more began to tick, the world took on a strange hazy quality, and both Cookie and Eve stared at their bodies in awe for it felt like every molecule within them was vibrating with the air!

Then the room returned to normal, just as Dean Winchester and Castiel came sprinting through the kitchen entrance. 

Cookie, at the sight of them, could no longer stand and sunk to the floor too, and she and Eve hugged each other fiercely as they waited for the two men to spot and arrest them. Whereas just a moment ago, Mrs. Christian had been horrified to be touching Cookie in such an intimately homosexual manner, now she could no longer get herself to care for she knew the end had come. She laid her head against Cookie’s breast, sobbed with reckless abandon, and apologized for her behaviour, as it was what would get them caught shortly without a doubt.

“Oh, Cookie,” Mrs. Christian wept, “I would marry you in a heartbeat if it meant we did not have to die tonight! Oh dear lord, I would do any homosexual activity if I could live!” and Cookie, with a weary sigh, patted her most affectionately on her white-haired head as she muttered, “I think you’re a bit confused, honey, but me, too, Eve. Me, too.”

But it seemed that these deathbed confessions were for naught, because even as Dean Winchester and Castiel strode over to them, they seemed unable to see or hear Cookie and Eve at all! The two ladies stared with much bewilderment as Dean Winchester’s foot seemed to vanish right into Mrs. Christian’s left foot as if they were ghosts—oh, what awful black magic had the child performed on them?!

“Hey, you okay?” Dean said, and he grabbed his son by the shoulders, searching the child’s eyes as if he half-expected to uncover some devastating secret within them (like Mrs. Christian had last night when she had learned that Woody was, in fact, a homosexual too). Jack, for his part, blinked several times, looked up at Dean with much confusion, and then, staring at Mrs. Christian and Cookie huddled on the floor, he turned back to his father.

“Am I…awake?” Jack said slowly and this question seemed to terrify the men.

“Jack, what happened?” Castiel said, and he came closer, and Mrs. Christian shrieked as both of the city man’s feet disappeared inside her stomach. But it seemed that the men were neither able to see nor hear her, save for Jack who once again looked their way, and his fixation on this particular area of the floor where the two ladies were sitting only had his fathers even more concerned.

Perhaps the child saw how much he was scaring his parents, for he mustered up a silly smile and said, “Um, I was just dreaming,” and Mrs. Christian did not know it then, but Jack Kline had truly grown up to be a shining and impeccable example of a Winchester, for he now knew that he should always repress his feelings when in fact he needed help and comfort. However, his lie seemed to relieve the two men considerably, thereby reinforcing to Jack that he had made the right decision, rather than letting them know the reality, which was that he thought he was hallucinating two old ladies in their home.

“I was dreaming,” he said again, with more confidence, and smiled bigger and brighter. With a flourish, he pointed to all the dishes that Mrs. Christian had knocked to the floor. “I guess I must have been sleepwalking. But it’s, um, okay now because I’m awake, and that means you don’t have to worry about me!”

Dean Winchester and Castiel exchanged unconvinced little looks then, for Jack Kline had clearly gone too far with his lie, before Castiel cleared his throat and said, “Jack, let’s get you back to bed,” and with that, they were gone, leaving Dean Winchester to clean up his son’s mess.

Cookie and Eve, on the other hand, sat in terrified silence, still afraid that whatever spell that this despicable spawn of Satan had cast on them would soon enough wear off, but Dean Winchester did not notice them, instead tiredly moving about as he placed the scattered cookware back in its place. By the time he was done, Castiel had returned and he stood by the entrance to the kitchen, as if unsure his presence was welcome.

Oh, it was time again to return to their doomed love story, Mrs. Christian thought.

“Uh, hey,” Dean said, and he stood with one hand clutching the island counter. “You, uh, figure out what he was up to? He definitely wasn’t sleepwalking so…”

Castiel smiled, in that soft small way he had been doing so much lately, and nodded.

“Jack was up trying to decode the message on his cereal box apparently. I told him I would help him with it in the morning.”

“Oh, good,” Dean said and he shifted on his feet, which unfortunately meant that he was in fact shifting right onto Mrs. Christian’s own immaterial body.

A long silence consumed the two men. A long silence that was so heavy that it was practically palpable, Mrs. Christian thought, and oh, how tense Dean Winchester’s shoulders were! How hard he was clenching the counter! Dean Winchester and Castiel both stood there, barely breathing, and Mrs. Christian saw Castiel take a hesitant step forward, as if he very much wanted to go to the freckled man, but perhaps thought better of it, because he stopped after just that one step.

“Cas—” Dean said and his voice broke and that was all he could say, it seemed, because he curled his free hand into a fist at his side, as if he was fighting tooth and nail within himself to talk to the man, and Mrs. Christian could not help but wonder if Dean was thinking of what Woody had advised him to do yesterday evening, if maybe he wanted to tell the city man how much he loved him, and how that love was of a rather homosexual nature, and how perhaps he wished to lie with Castiel in the biblical sense, but if these were the thoughts running through his head, he did not reveal them. Instead, he once more tried to talk, and once more managed to say nothing. 

Maybe the silence between them had grown far too long and awkward because Castiel then took a step back and, “Well, I should get back to bed,” he said and Dean nodded, made a little noise in his throat that oddly seemed part-agreement and part- _I-don’t-want-you-to-go_ , but the city man did not capture the latter half of Dean Winchester’s meaning for he departed after only a small moment of hesitation.

For what felt like an eternity, Dean stood there, one hand resting on the counter while the other stayed curled at his side like how a forlorn Victorian gentleman suffering from unrequited love might do. Or at least that’s what Mrs. Christian pictured such a man to be like, for alas she did not know much about English history, despite England being her birthplace, due to her unfortunate upbringing in America. Oh, how she longed to meet the Victorian queen, and she had, of course, tried in earnest to immerse herself in her culture, though often her attempts had been futile. For the last eighteen years, she had been reading the same Victorian novel so as to grasp a semblance of her family history, yet a terrible sleepiness would overtake her after only a few pages and she would unfortunately doze off. After this, she would forget where she was and would have to start at the very beginning again. Nonetheless, it helped prevent quite the fiasco whenever someone questioned after her heritage, for she would simply cite this book as evidence of her Englishness, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ having been suggested to her by her husband. Though she had not ventured far into the novel, when anyone asked, she would tell them that she quite admired the way that the protagonist dealt with morals and sought to lead a life by his example, which would often earn her an amused chuckle from her customers at the shop.

Oh, if only Dean Winchester’s story would progress at a different pace than Mrs. Christian’s reading efforts! But alas, he stayed there for so long that Eve Christian and Cookie Baker grew bored and wandered off, back to the front door through which they had entered the bunker, hoping that their incorporeal forms would now simply ghost past the metal. However, once again the strange symbols in the door flared an orange colour, and did not let them pass. It was then that Cookie realized that they could not leave this place anyway, for how would they go on with their lives as ghosts? Oh, the horror that gripped Mrs. Christian then, now knowing that they had to communicate with the devil child again and get him to fix them up at once, for now she too understood that there was no future for her if she could never be seen or heard from ever again! And then, after much discussion about their predicament, they re-entered the kitchen, now devoid of even the freckled ruffian, and at last they drifted off to sleep, the ordeal of the night taking its full toll on their much-aged bodies.

It was quite a fitful sleep that Mrs. Christian had, and when she awoke on Christmas Eve morning, it was to the rowdy sounds of a family getting together for breakfast. To Mrs. Christian’s horror, she opened her eyes to see Samuel Winchester standing right inside her head! She yelped, as any sane person would, and also because she could not help but express her fear, and this woke Cookie right up. It was then that Mrs. Christian saw how peculiarly their bodies had entwined themselves in sleep, for Cookie was snuggled up quite comfortably with her head on Mrs. Christian’s stomach, an arm casually thrown around her waist, and oh, it felt delightfully warm to be so close and intimate, before homophobic shock had Mrs. Christian jolting upright. After this, the two ladies fussed much before they disentangled themselves, and when they were both standing again, dusting off the grime of the Winchester kitchen, there was an awkward air between them that perhaps could have almost rivalled last night’s silence between the freckled ruffian and his city man friend.

“So are we going to talk about…?” Cookie started but Mrs. Christian felt herself on the verge of nonspontaneous combustion so to her relief, Cookie did not push the matter any further.

As it was, there were far more interesting things to chat about, Mrs. Christian thought, than the awfully queer feelings that were stirring up in her stomach.

Samuel and Dean Winchester were seated with Castiel and Jack Kline at their breakfast table, digging heartily into stacks of pancakes while—to Cookie and Eve’s horror—casually discussing their devil worshipping activities! It seemed that now that the city man had helped his son figure out the message on the back of the cereal box— _with hard work and a big smile, you too can be cookietacular!—_ the little spawn of Satan had turned to whining about being excluded from work that involved demonic entities.

“But I wanna help!” Jack groaned, between abhorrently large mouthfuls of pancake that barely made him comprehensible and it was father like son, Mrs. Christian thought, for Dean Winchester answered him with a similarly frightfully full mouth, telling his son point-blank, “I don’t think so, kid.”

But it was Samuel Winchester who was the voice of reason. He cleared his throat, smiled gently at the disastrous way his son was eating, and then explained, “Jack, I know you really wanna help Jody, but you’re still figuring out your powers, and there’s a lot you need to learn before you know how to interrogate a demon for info. Not to mention last night didn’t go so well—um, you were a little hasty with the holy water, to be honest, and it kinda almost erased the devil’s trap. Dean’s right, okay? You’re not ready, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be another demon down the road where you won’t be able to help. We’re counting on you for the future, okay?”

Oh, how saddened the child looked at being told he was too young to understand the intricacies of devil worship! Oh, it was preposterous, Mrs. Christian thought, considering how the child mere hours ago had clearly harnessed the hellish powers of Satan himself to make the two old ladies invisible!

As if he could sense Mrs. Christian’s thoughts, the child turned to look at her, and a peculiar frightened expression crossed his face. He stared at her for so long and with such focus that his three dads began to observe their child warily, and when this dawned on Jack, he grinned in a rather unconvincing way, for clearly he was troubled. But nonetheless a lie was once again on the tip of his tongue as he tried to ease the parental concerns being directed at him.

“I was just daydreaming,” he said and with a hand raised in goodbye, he uttered a cheery “See you later!” and exited the kitchen in a rush, but not before Mrs. Christian saw the confused frown on Jack’s face as he turned back to look at the old ladies one last time.

The sudden strange disappearance of their son who had just moments ago been arguing with them had the Winchesters and the city man quite perplexed, so much so that Samuel Winchester picked up his plate and put it in the sink, excusing himself while citing his concern for their son. But before he left, he told Dean and Castiel that he would “meet them in the dungeon in twenty minutes,” a statement which had Cookie and Eve quite shaken up, although now they were unfortunately getting used to hearing such unsettling things on such frequent a basis. In fact, Mrs. Christian had had to think about the Winchesters so often this week that she had now even gotten used to referring to the city man by his unnatural and godless name—the horror of familiarity!

For a moment, Mrs. Christian ruminated on her dismal situation, but then with Samuel’s exit, her attention turned back to Dean Winchester and Castiel, for oh, the pain of unrequited love was again in the air!

The two men were utterly alone in each other’s company.

Cookie and Eve, because they were tired of standing, slid into Samuel and Jack’s vacated seats at the table, and although they were nervous at sitting so close to the two lovebirds in denial, the men did not make any indication that the women were anything but invisible, as was often the case in their supernatural world, so it was here that they watched Dean and Cas’ love story unfold.

At first, as there always seemed to be, there was silence. The two seemed unable to meet each other’s eyes these days without a buffer between them, and the only sounds that could be heard were the tiny little clinks of Castiel’s spoon as he stirred sugar into his coffee. But then Dean Winchester looked up, gazed at Castiel with such a beautiful lovestruck smile that it took Mrs. Christian’s own breath away, and then Castiel smiled softly too, and surely only good things could happen from here on, Mrs. Christian thought, for these two men were homosexuals and she knew what homosexuals were supposed to do!

But what Mrs. Christian had just envisioned was not what happened.

Instead, Castiel’s cellular phone chimed with the arrival of a new letter just then, and Dean’s lovestruck smile turned a little sad and a little strained, before he swallowed and averted his eyes completely.

“Chick from your date, huh?” he said, and try as he might, it seemed that Dean Winchester could not keep his voice upbeat. He seemed to know this, for he tried to laugh to cover it up, a laugh that wavered so unsteadily as it escaped his throat that it only served to highlight his unhappiness, but if Castiel noticed, he did not let on. “So, Cas, uh, how was it last night? You didn’t say a lot. Stayed shut up in your room and…and I thought we’d talk about it, Cas.”

Castiel put his spoon down, met Dean’s eyes again and Dean looked at the man with so much want that it made Mrs. Christian’s own homophobic heart ache. But perhaps it was Castiel who was more lovesick in the moment, because his blue eyes burned, alight with desire like Dean’s were, and the two seemed captivated by each other in a way only star-crossed lovers could be. 

“I needed some time for myself,” Castiel said and his eyes did not leave Dean’s but his gaze grew only more intense and Dean stopped breathing then, as if he did not want the sound of the air rushing through his lungs to obscure the city man’s words. “I needed to think about some things. I’m human now, Dean. I—I don’t have an infinity anymore to…shove certain things aside. There are…words that I’ve always wanted to say to…someone. Feelings that I’ve long wanted to experience but thought that I couldn’t have. Things that I think could make me happy and…I want to try. I want to be brave enough to say them and to have them.”

Dean Winchester, upon hearing this, smiled in such a painful way. His eyes took on a deep sorrow then, and he licked his lips, as if parched, but truly the only thing that could have satisfied his thirst was the love of the man before him. And then, as he had done so before, he laughed, a most broken laugh that was just as brief if not more shaky.

“Well, don’t tell her ‘I love you’ right after the first date, Cas,” he said and he smiled and oh, there were tears in his eyes, Mrs. Christian saw, unshed tears that perhaps Dean Winchester hoped that the city man would simply read off as tiredness. “God—I—I’m happy for you, Cas. I really am. You meeting some girl, settling down, away from all our crap—nothing would make me happier. If you get a chance to get out of this life—hell, I’ve tried.”

“Oh,” Castiel said and his fingers curled very tightly around his mug and it seemed that he could no longer meet Dean Winchester’s eyes. “If it truly makes you happy, Dean…I’m glad. I’ve…always wanted nothing more than for you to be happy and if I could give that to you in some way—”

Castiel got up from the table then, so quickly and so suddenly with his untouched cup of coffee that Mrs. Christian was surprised herself, and Castiel ended his conversation with Dean before it had even truly begun. Mrs. Christian could not help her disappointment for she had, despite herself, become rather invested in this homosexual love story and she was becoming quite irritable that today, these two could not seem to stay in the same room with each other for more than five minutes! Queerbaited again! If only Mrs. Christian had known how she would be deeply regretting this wish of hers come nightfall.

Before Castiel departed the kitchen, he gave Dean one last sad smile and said, “Happy Christmas Eve, Dean,” in a soft, gentle voice that had Dean swallowing in response. Dean, for his part, could not keep his eyes off him, and watched Castiel go and kept looking on and on, for a long time after that, as if doing so could bring the city man back to him. But at last, he must have realized that no matter how hard he wished it, he could not make it happen for then he too got up and left.

Cookie and Eve exchanged sympathetic looks, for their hearts were heavy with what they had just witnessed. Oh, these two men were fools, Mrs. Christian thought, for it was clear to her that they were in love with each other so how could Dean and Castiel not see it themselves? Oh, curse the day that Mrs. Gaylord Christian ever became so daft! Why, after all she had seen, she could not help but think that she was becoming quite the expert in recognizing queer love. In fact, against her will, her eyes had now opened and she could not help but feel regret at the way that she had treated homosexuals in the past, for perhaps people of this community faced great hardships too, and perhaps it was her duty as a good Christian woman to guide them, provided that they were not devil-worshipping denim-wrapped nightmares like the Winchesters. Once this ordeal was over, Mrs. Christian resolved to turn her attention to Woody Farmer, the latest gay man in Lebanon, for she was still curious to know who his secret lover was, and if perhaps she could lend him a helping hand after they managed to disentangle his affiliations with Sam and Dean Winchester—and Satan by extension. Alas, the poor wife of Woody’s lover would certainly have to be informed. Mrs. Christian was already imagining the understanding and kind but distanced way she would deliver the unfortunate news to the poor creature. Of course, it would have to be her who would have to see the woman, for surely the wife would tear Woody to pieces otherwise if he showed up himself!

However, Mrs. Christian was rudely yanked out of her fantasy of being a saviour of the queer community when Cookie rapped her across the forehead with her cane, for Dean Winchester was getting away! They scrambled from their seats and followed the elder Winchester brother, and it was a good thing that they did, for he led them straight to the place that was no doubt their dungeon. Samuel Winchester was already there, pacing around a chair to which an unconscious woman that neither Mrs. Christian nor Cookie recognized was tied up, the sight of which had Mrs. Christian immediately making the sign of the cross against her chest. Cookie, who had once upon a time been soft on the brothers and had struggled to believe Mrs. Christian’s fears about them was now once again muttering the words “They’re insane!” in a dazed litany under her breath. And then, upon closer inspection, they saw with horror that the chair containing the woman was dead-center in some elaborately large circular symbol drawn in blood-red on the floor, no doubt a Satanic rune which enabled the pair to communicate with the wishes of the devil himself. Oh, just when Mrs. Christian had thought nothing could scare them anymore, the brothers had only gone on to reveal an even more terrifying side to themselves!

Upon his elder brother’s arrival, however, Samuel Winchester stepped away from the poor woman they had kidnapped and strode over to Dean, speaking to him in low tones of secrecy that required the two ladies to creep ever so closer. From his face, it seemed very much that Samuel was feeling awkward, that he was perhaps broaching a subject that he very much did not want to broach, for he shuffled often and looked as if wished he could be anywhere but in his brother’s company. It seemed that perhaps Dean Winchester felt the same way, for he was fidgeting with a silver blade, twirling it in his hands as if he no longer remembered how to stand still and listen carefully.

“—that aside, Dean, and I didn’t want to bring this up but, um, look man, I couldn’t help noticing that you were a little off your game last night and you know we can’t afford distractions with this job.”

At Samuel’s accusation, Dean’s hand faltered and the blade went skittering across the floor. Samuel, clearly even more unnerved at his brother’s sensitive reaction, hastily pressed on nonetheless, and the things that spilled from his mouth came forth in one big nervous burst, as if he had been pondering them for some time but had been unable to beckon forth the courage to say them until now.

“And look, man, I get it. Everybody has an off day, but um, things have been weird, Dean, this whole week ever since Cas tore out his grace and, if I’m being honest, maybe a lot longer—um, maybe something like seven years now. Look, I talked to Jack and he said the reason he really, really wanted to help with the demon today was because he saw you crying last night or something and, um, I’m worried, you know? And I still don’t know what you were doing with Cas on Thursday either. Like I know you said you were coaching him on dating or something but Cas doesn’t seem to remember, um, _anything_ from that day. You say you’re not dating him, Dean, and then last night, he went out with that woman at the gas station, but then also when he was drunk, he said he _was_ dating you and…and I saw him kiss you, okay? And then he talked about you taking his virginity or something—and look, Dean, I feel bad about what I said to you, because there’s no way you’re corrupting him or whatever whether you, um, do the deed or not with him given he’s not drunk when it happens—but what the hell’s going on with you two, man? Cas didn’t even come help us with the demon last night and I just—if there’s something you wanna talk about, Dean, I just want you to know that I’m here for you and—and that it’s, um, you know—like I think it’s clear already but just in case it’s not, maybe you should hear it from me anyway—but Dean, it’s okay to be gay, okay? Or, well to be more accurate, bisexual, if, um, you were worried about that for any reason."

Samuel smiled then, most anxiously now that he was done, and oh, how flustered Dean Winchester became at his brother’s speech! He spluttered, grunted, choked, but could not seem to get a single coherent word out, and Samuel, for his part, began to slowly inch backwards as if afraid of what would happen when Dean remembered to recollect his fallen blade from the floor.

But at last, Dean Winchester managed to string together a single sentence.

“Sam,” he said and he gripped his brother by the collar of his shirt. “You better not mention a word of this to Cas, or so help me god, I’ll—"

Whatever the freckled ruffian intended to say, he cut himself off. He swallowed then, more than once, let his brother go and stood there shaking. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could not face Samuel or perhaps the entire world put together, and then, when at last he spoke, it was but a broken, ragged whisper, the words exhaled as if they had never meant to escape Dean Winchester’s mouth, as if he had meant to keep them secret until the day he died.

“I’m in love with him, okay?” he said and he clenched his jaw and looked anywhere but at his brother who seemed just as shaken. “I love him, Sammy, and I was gonna tell him but he—he went on his date and he had a good time and he’s happy and that’s enough for me, alright? So don’t tell him, Sammy, god please, I-I just want him to be happy, Sam. I just want him to be happy and that’s enough for me because it’s better than I could ever give him, and I know I deserve something but—but it’s not him because—because—he loves someone else, Sam, and I can’t—I don’t want to be the one to take his happiness away.”

And oh, how broken Dean Winchester looked then, for he could not get another word out! He ran his hands over his face, over his quivering lips that could not do the work he intended for them, and perhaps he gave up, for he stopped trying to speak altogether. What could have prompted him to do this, Mrs. Christian wondered, here and now of all places? Perhaps it was because his brother had all but let him know that he knew his brother’s secret passion for their city man friend or, perhaps it was because just twenty minutes ago, Dean Winchester had completely and utterly misinterpreted Castiel’s words, and had taken Castiel’s admittance to wanting to be in love with someone as a sign of a rejection when he should have taken it as a sign to rejoice! But whatever it was, it seemed that try as he might, Dean Winchester could no longer hold his love in, except for the one person who needed to hear it the most. 

Samuel, upon hearing his brother’s confession, seemed dumbfounded. He stood for many moments in his shock, and he must have known that the longer he stayed silent, the more anxious his brother would become, for he quickly composed himself and then, with a gentle smile of acceptance and a hand to Dean Winchester’s shoulder, “I’m proud of you, Dean,” he said and to Dean Winchester’s surprise, his younger brother pulled him into a most loving embrace.

Mrs. Christian could not help but weep most heartily at the sight and Cookie too was shedding tears, for just as had happened when Woody Farmer had hugged Dean, the same happened when Sam Winchester wrapped his arms around his brother. Dean Winchester’s body grew lax, seemed to flood with relief, and it seemed that each time Dean Winchester revealed the contents of his heart, he healed a little more and more from within.

After that, the two brothers broke apart and did not speak, and instead busied themselves with their work. Samuel, perhaps eager to begin mistreatment of the unlucky woman in the chair or perhaps eager to demonstrate to his elder brother that he had already forgotten what his brother no doubt wanted him to forget, immediately began to discuss torture tactics. Then, as if on cue, Castiel appeared and joined them, and Samuel began to summarize to him how they had interrogated the poor woman the previous night, so that the city man would have a fresh understanding of how best to break her today.

The trio parted ways then, preparing for the work they were about to commence, and Samuel shuffled through some heavy books he had on a table while in this hubbub, Dean gazed at Castiel most longingly. He did not go to him, and perhaps this was what Castiel himself wanted, for he had not looked at Dean once since entering the room and rather seemed to be avoiding him. But Mrs. Christian could not help but notice how Dean Winchester seemed to tremble ever so slightly, how he had one hand curled into a fist at his side and how his other free hand seemed to jerk every so often, as if he wanted nothing more than to take Castiel’s hand in his own. And then at last, Castiel looked up, and their eyes met across the room, and Mrs. Christian’s own heart seemed to stutter to a stop in her chest for there was so much yearning in those eyes and how saddened she felt knowing how little it would have taken to satisfy it!

But alas, the two men did not cross the room to meet. The tension between them only grew. And then Samuel Winchester got up from his books and announced that he was ready to begin. With a splash of holy water to the face of the woman in the chair, she awoke, and to Mrs. Christian’s horror, the woman’s eyes were pitch black and empty, not a flicker of humanity in them!

In her pain and fear, she sat with Cookie on the floor, right on the edge of the devil’s trap, and she wept continuously, her tears sliding down her cheeks to fall on the red paint there, and not knowing how her wailing was about to once again unleash more trouble on them than she could have ever imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp, there it is! i really struggled with this chapter and i think i reread it so many times that it stopped making sense to me altogether. i hope it wasn't like that for you though! i promise next chapter will be better; i'm really excited to write it! <3
> 
> next chapter is also probably going to be really long, so i can't promise how soon i'll be able to get it out, though i'm hoping it will be in the next four or five days, with the worst case scenario being a week. as always, if you want to keep up to date with that, i'll post little writing updates on my tumblr (link in the author note in the previous chapter) if you're interested in following along.
> 
> anyway, comments and kudos are always much appreciated, and next chapter, we'll see some bedsharing between dean and cas, more fake-dating, and plenty of pining. see you then! <3


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